Swallow it Down
by Itzy Strange
Summary: When Ronan the Accuser is rejected a Kree of his standing refuses to have anything less than his way. He plots, he ruins… and the tide of judgment smashes down upon her until she drowns in it. (Ronan/OC)
1. Teaser

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything belonging to the Marvel Universe.**

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><p><strong>Prologue<strong>

He keeps me. That was my sentence for a crime I cannot remember.

I have been so long in his care I hardly recall the sensation of planet atmosphere, of air moving around my body that wasn't unsettled by the large male who sits and speaks with me.

His mouth never moves.

There is always blood.

Not my blood. Not his blood.

As there are no others but us I do not know where the fluid he baths me with originates from. I stopped caring long ago. It is a beautiful shade of blue that stains me the same color as my keeper with each pass of the sponge he drags over my flesh.

His name is Ronan the Accuser. I'm not sure why I remember that.

When he looks at me I see hatred and the reflection of my face, stained indigo, in his eyes. I cannot look away until his mouth finds mine; the nature of his touch on my body grows rough and painfully possessive. I know the feel of him, naked or with armor, the hard planes, the sinew… the raw power.

Because I am weak.

He made me this way.

The hate he pours into me even though his groans, guttural and dark, express the sick pleasure he finds in my body never alters. When his hips pump savage or sweet sometimes I find a voice and whisper words that come from a place I can't find inside myself. I am always looking for that place.

He keeps it from me.

There is never a pattern to navigate in his possession so I might cling to it. Ronan is too clever to make the same strokes twice. Yet, sometimes he traces my spine as he lowers me down onto his swollen erection, as if he cares … as if I could remember myself … is if in mockery of my loss. Other times he hurts me until I beg for more.

It is the only way I can find my tongue and speak. I revel in it.

Once his cock burst forth the sticky fluid that will linger on my thighs long after he is gone he always says my name, presses his lips to my forehead, and leaves me as I was.

My name is…

What do you know, I already forgot.

I do know the floor is cold, carved with symbols under my body when I roll to my back and feel the haze seep deeper. I do know that I would sleep forever if I could.

I do know that he will come back.

He always comes back.

If I remembered how to weep I would.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

**Present Day:**

**-Year 2014-**

**The Acolyte**

The lightest brush of fingertips, warm... the soft exhale of breath, hot on my face. The only heat I knew came from him.

I was always cold.

"Ronan." My eyes opened and the name came so softly I was not sure if it had only been a thought.

The feeling of soft attention traced the shape of my arched brow. "Speak my name again."

I felt air leave my body in a death rattle, the word far less natural than my unbidden earlier expression, "Ronan."

A low hum, gnarled by baritone, passed from him to me. He was above me, lounging, if such a term could be applied to a beast that did not know the concept of true rest. My lips were traced, parted and plump. He took pleasure in my mouth... because it was blue.

Or was it because it was soft and could be made willing.

"Again," he commanded.

But my tongue had grown thick, and my eyes damp. Under something burdensome and weighty, I felt an ancient sorrow seep up and choke me. I could not make the words, inability there in my expression.

It seemed the outcome Ronan expected, his calloused warrior's fingertips moving from tracing my face to skim a neck barred under his touch. By my next breath a breast was palmed, nails digging around the mound of flesh until my skin bumped.

I knew that touch.

It was expectant... as was my body.

Whatever cloud I lived in faded upon the feel of a hot mouth closing over the jutting cerulean of my nipple. The sweep of a tongue, just abrasive enough to make my breath hitch; a nip of teeth, and when my eyes reopened I saw him watching me.

"Do I not give you pleasure?"

He knew I could not answer and chose to acquire sanction on his own. A finger prodded between my legs. I was slippery; I was wet; my body wanted what it knew he could foster.

The only release I would ever be allowed.

My sigh of relief should have shamed me, though why I could not say. He breeched with one delicious finger knowing the ridges of my body, where to press and stroke. Hips angling for more, my expression one of defeat and entreaty, I shuddered.

The Kree never smiled but he did curve his mouth just enough to show approval, his knees forcing my legs wider. One hard thrust and he filled me, filled the emptiness of my existence, and I clung to him in the savagery.

It would last for hours, Ronan wringing climax after climax from my body as I sweat and moaned, fighting for power over my voice. His mass shifted, rolling so I might lie above him where I would ride the veiny thickness that sought entry to my womb. Leaning forward, braced on my hands so he might suck my nipples, I waited to feel the pinch, to know him grip my breasts until I ground down, the inner ridges of my sex stroking against his shaft.

"Ronan!"

I had not meant to speak yet language broke free on its own. My skull was in his hands, my lips parted as my body languished about in pleasure. When my eyes found his the violet demanded something full of rich ripe fury.

"Say my name again!"

That secret place where I was locked away... I could feel my soul scratching on the other side of the insurmountable wall.

A broken thing, a tone I had forgotten escaped, "You seized my life..."

"_You_ never wanted to live! I took what you would have wasted." He pulled my head down and smashed his mouth into mine as if he might suck more words from my throat and give me more negations. The probing tongue, the furor he wore, both seeped inside me, warming the chill.

In that moment I wished for the cold again, instead I tasted.

I knew that flavor. A spice made from the bark of a tree... one I had once favored.

Or had I?

With a desperate choking noise, I began to lose cognitive thought beyond the carnal interest my body pursued.

My hair was pulled so the violent kiss grew impossible. He held me where he could watch my expression as what little I'd found slipped away, giving me my lesson in an authoritative command, "You never wanted life."

Then what had I wanted?

I was spun to my hands and knees, Ronan fucking in from behind; forceful as he breached me but slow with each withdrawal, so I might feel every last inch of possession. I came again, my face pressed to the markings carved into the floor, my ass high, presented, and gripped by large hands that clutched and bruised.

There were hours more and when at last he was done he cupped my cheek and pressed me smoothly lower so I might take him in my mouth and suck his turgid cock clean.

The noises he made the times I did that... I enjoyed them.

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><p><strong>One Thousand Years Prior<strong>

**-Year 1012-**

Nothing got blood flowing quite like those last brutal, hard breathing moments before mission completion. A stinging breeze burned my lungs with each deep vital suck required to saturate my cells in the proper balance of nitrogen and oxygen; too hot, too dry - dead like the dusty and cracked planet.

The atmosphere was orange like a tallow wick flame.

I enjoyed that... the view of tinted light over red dunes.

I was almost tempted to smile.

My mouth did curve, the skin of my chapping lips pulling as I ran through the sands in pursuit. I didn't notice it though. How could I when the one I had chased for three weeks had reformed and was fleeing his sentence... again.

Crash landing my ship into his, stranding us both in the red tinted wastelands, had slowed him down. It had also wounded me, and in the barren desert my body would fail from lack of water or food should I misuse the opportunity and let him slip away.

Furthermore, time was a factor as I was not the only one in pursuit. If another ship were to arrive, should he get his hands on it, my quarry would be given yet another opportunity to follow his appalling course. He was slippery, he could steal one...

Where I was bearing abrasions from impact and stifling a limp, he did not so much as stumble. His ship had been utterly demolished, the man inside crushed; it meant nothing to the life form inside. In the days up to our final showdown I'd seen him burned, cut, shot, poisoned. Still he moved; still he believed his existence would be sanctioned.

He was wrong.

Vitg'jui, a Kree male several times my size–who was stronger than me, who was faster–ran. He ran even as his bones knit, he ran because he knew what I was and what I had come for.

Everything perished eventually... mortals, gods, the ancients... that actuality left me with an unshakable sense of awe each time I learned one of the living believed they might oppose the natural order. If any had chosen as Vitg'jui chose, if the living attempted to oppose Death, they would find me, or one like me, in their shadow.

Death was omnipresent; omnipotent... All it had to do was whisper.

I listened.

I listened closely; I heard the tale of a Kree with unlikely abilities who'd gone stark raving mad.

Who'd been judged and executed.

Who'd reanimated and escaped.

An abomination who, unlike me, could not die. He'd wisely chosen a more inhospitable battle ground, further weighing the odds in his favor, where he darted through dunes and the jutting wreckage of the starships that burned and discharged noxious fumes. I suppose, if one were to be poetic, the acrid surroundings added a bit of sanctity to the confrontation. The more perilous to me, the pursuer, the greater the honor to the one I served. But Death was not so vain, and certainly not so greedy.

No. The master I followed was simple, patient, and could be so gentle it moved me.

Death was glorious.

But in cases like the fleeing Kree abomination there would be no gentle... I would make him suffer.

It was not my nature to waste words or shout threats. Vitg'jui had never once in our three week wild pursuit heard my voice. My duty was simply to kill the unkillable.

Fist tightening on the grip of my black carved labris, I twisted the abundant heat energies, sorcery lifting my body from the ground, and propelled like a shot the final distance.

Air caught my robes, tugging the fabric in ripples that snapped like a large black sail at my back. I raised the double-headed axe overhead, released the spell, and allowed gravity to sway my form and pull me down, down, down upon a soul I would see cleaved from the world.

A rush of air, focused eyes seeking the small portion of exposed skin between dented cybernetic armor and helmet- a slender line of cerulean skin flashing like a pretty little target.

The Kree would be unhappy I killed one of their blue nobles, corrupted or no, as they were rare and there would never be any more.

That was the least of my concerns.

With the full force of my strength I sent the labris in a deadly spin, my free hand spelling out the snare that would end Vitg'jui's life. For a few precious seconds he was in my magic's net, trapped, with no way for him to use his greater speed to evade. The black blade caught light then burrowed deep into flesh and bone, the Kree landing in the dust, head half severed… yet still alive.

That was why I was necessary; I knew what was hidden in that living corpse under layers of armor, strength, and depravity. Landing roughly on his back I reached for the black handle of my labris. With a hiss of breath I pulled it free of splintered vertebrae and cartilage, only to bring it down hard before the male could squirm away. It took me three full blows to fully split the head from jerking shoulders.

The unwelcome noise of landing spacecraft, an unnecessary reminder I had little time before _my_ pursuers brought down their own axe, did not so much as turn my head.

From my fingertips black tendrils poured like ink, my lips moving in a silent incantation as I swiftly searched for a pulsing trace of the relic that gave the monster power, perverted and horrifying. The corpse was already reforming, reaching for the head I kicked aside with my boot.

There was no time for delicacy.

My power brushed the tiny serpent figurine, a splinter in his heart. Knee to Vitg'jui's back, holding the heaving thing down, I rammed my arm into the gaping stump of his neck, down his esophagus; the nearby head making pained clogged noises, vivid pink eyes watching me with hate and fury. The sharpness of my nails cut through tissue; even with Vitg'jui's hands reaching up to squeeze my arm near hard enough to break bone.

There it was, something that sang of immortality and decadent temptation, calling to me to take it, and accept it, and let it give me everything I ever desired. Fisting the long forgotten artifact, I ripped it out in a spray of indigo blood and ruined tissue.

Vitg'jui became a true corpse; my master honored; my duty almost complete.

The timing was acute.

They were already shouting for me to raise my hands, the barrel of a laser pulse riffle pressed against the back of my skull. It belonged to the deep voiced cyber-augmented one who'd chased me through the Kree home world: Korath the Pursuer.

In a snarl I was told to raise my hands again. I did so, the grossness of blue blood and gore saturating my arm and robes past one elbow.

Before the warriors might touch me or try to take what I possessed my fist squeezed. Every remaining bit of my power concentrated around the defiled little serpent; I took from the heat the three suns and the cloudless atmosphere provided; I took from my flesh. My gripping hand becoming one of white-hot flame as the voice in my mind screeched promises, anything I desired, if I would only take the serpent into myself and protect it.

It promised me power, love, the devotion of a god, immortality...

My skin seared more than the desert suns could ever burn me; my flaming fist blistered, grew ruined.

More Kree soldiers surrounded me; a swarm of armored legs came into my view. I opened my palm and let the ash inside catch in the desert wind.

Never again would that broken thing tempt or taint another.

In my triumph, in my pain and fatigue, I did not look up. Instead I stared at red sand unsettled by little whirls, the pattern ruined by the approaching large black boots of one who walked with haughty authority.

The man behind me, Korath, pressed his knee to my back should I get any ideas of backing away.

The head of a massive war hammer came into view, slowly moving in an arc from the ground to my uncovered face. Lightly, my chin was caught and forced upward by the weapon until my throat bared and my neck bent unnaturally. From under the black of my hood I saw him in the flesh, the sneering curled lip, his armor dark, red Kree markings slashed upon the chestplate. Black dye smeared thick around burning eyes, running like a poisoned river of tears down cheeks to pool on his chin and saturate a harsh lower lip.

Half the galaxy knew those markings.

A voice deep with impending doom spoke almost conversationally, "Vitg'jui was mine to pass judgment upon for his crimes against Kree doctrine."

"I notified the one holding his rifle to my skull my arrival was imminent, and was informed you were _occupied_ with other matters, Supreme Accuser. The situation was dire and my master waits for no man. Had Korath taken my claim seriously perhaps this confusion over who would have the pleasure of killing Vitg'jui would not have taken place."

The hammer lifted my chin higher, forcing me to alter my crouch over the bleeding corpse or fall awkwardly onto the one I had just slandered. "You assume to usurp my claim?"

Calmly I replied, my face serene in victory, "I would have gladly been an observer, Ronan the Accuser."

Snapping amethyst eyes stared unblinking at the exposed lower half of my face, the deep echo of his baritone demanding, "What did you rip from his corpse?"

The lightest of curves came to the corner of my mouth. Blinking twice, a deep comforting breath expanded my rib cage and was exhaled. I chose to stand. "The infection that drove Vitg'jui to madness. It has been destroyed and is no longer a concern."

A hiss of breath demonstrated Ronan found my rise impudent. Above flaring nostrils, those far too intense eyes scanned down the haggard state of my robes, the oozing mess of my blistered hand.

"Acolyte of Death or no, you will tell me or I will bathe in your blood."

My voice answered flat, my attention going toward the setting suns and the play of shadows stretching on the dunes. "The fool possessed an affront to your god. Under its influence, Vitg'jui's body would have reanimated each time you killed him. Over and over."

"You will look at me when you speak, mortal." His gaze cut through my cowl as if he could see the opaque white orbs that marked me as different enjoying a brief moment of scenery.

I reached up and brushed back my hood.

My eyes slid in their sockets back toward the Supreme Accuser, the ruin of my hand gesturing to the corpse at my feet. "Great as you are, Ronan, the only immortal here is immortal no longer."

The Supreme Accuser snorted, the nearest thing a creature of his cruel disposition probably had to a laugh. I felt as if I were being measured, physically small in the midst of so many large soldiers. I will admit it was egotism, but I disliked that my skull mask, the symbol of my duty, had been dislodged in the wreck; that my living face was exposed to be seen as if those looking upon me were familiar to me.

"The artifact, female; its name?"

He would have to bathe in my blood. My lips did not move; my expression did not alter... none would be told the name of the Serpent Crown because men were easily tempted. Kree, especially, were known to seek power. And there was great power to be found in the fragmented key to Set's prison.

"Duty keeps you silent," Ronan conceded. "There is still a threat."

"But no longer to your people." That I would affirm. The fragments were scattered all over the universe; chances of two in Kree space were slim to none. "And for that service may I beg a ride to Hala, noble Kree?"

"In chains, Acolyte," Ronan confirmed, the dark sand of his voice deep, soft; a thing to sink into. "Upon arrival to the capitol you will be publicly caned for the destruction wrought in your unsolicited _service_."

There had been carnage on Hala, bystander deaths, the burned out husks of buildings left in the wake of my pursuit of the offender; yet all of it might have been prevented had the arrogant race taken my arrival with some gravity.

Either way, Kree retribution was as inevitable as death.

Utterly impassive I bowed slightly, my behavior contrasting to the Krees' conceit. "As you will."

Korath roughly chained me, growling as he shackled my hands tightly at my back. I managed without complaint, my burned wrist bleeding as skin sloughed off under the restraint.

I was in pain, great pain, and fanatic Kree were not known for their mercy.

I received none.

Dragged away from the indigo blood stained sand, we abandoned Vitg'jui's body, leaving it behind like garbage. I cared not. My thoughts were instead of what had been done with my weapon.

Pressed roughly into a shuttle seat, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, almost sighing when the door sealed and dim light replaced the dead planet suns' over brightness. Ronan and Korath, I could feel their eyes on me. Distantly I wondered how much damage my robes concealed. I could taste blood crusted at the corner of my mouth, my body's wounds from the crash extensive, though not fatal.

With the heat of battle fading, so was my energy. I had spent a great deal of sorcery and felt hollow, aching with emptiness. I longed for water. My eyelids peeled back and I looked at what sat across from me.

From the way Ronan stared I was certain his attention had not left my face. He hardly blinked, just sat as if sitting a throne, his hammer across his knees.

Meeting his eye I looked back, but I didn't see. I may have stared but I was looking through him, and he must have known. I felt the silent order I return my notice to his grandeur, and ignored it for the remainder of the short flight.

We docked inside a ship massive in size and I was ungently escorted to a prison cell, of which there were many. No more contact, no more eyes landed upon me in the days I waited in solitude. In the dark I was provided with enough food and water to remain lucid, enough medicine for my hand to remain uninfected; kept, in a sense, healthy enough to stay coherent.

It was not out of kindness... No, Ronan wanted to assure I felt every stroke of the upcoming punishment.

In that cell I sat in silence and meditated; my mind on affairs far more important than the upcoming damage that would be inflicted on my body. Eventually long skeletal fingers brushed like a kiss over my cheek, the only regard Death would pay the service I had rendered.

My lashes lifted and he was there, standing in the personification the abstract favored when he appeared to me: a male, large, beautiful, with hair as black as the soul could be evil. Death wore skin the same faint grey as mine, his lips cerulean as mine were, yet where my eyes were only an eerie white his seemed to hold every color I had ever seen and would ever see. And though he seemed fleshy beneath dark robes, his hands were nothing but bone peeking from draping sleeves.

He never spoke to me, the only sound between us my breaths and the ambient workings of a warship.

My eyes drank him in; that was how Ronan and his soldiers found me when the time came. I never looked from Death even when the dark skinned, icy-eyed Korath chained my hands, folding them before me in a mockery of prayer.

Even Death smiled at that.

I would have smiled back but I knew none in the room could see our guest, so instead I turned my attention to the Supreme Accuser posturing large by the door. Where Korath had looked to me with sneering hatred Ronan was grim, cold… disinterested. Yet he kept those vibrant stony eyes locked so severely on my face I could almost feel where they ran over the contours of defining bone.

It was not a sensation I enjoyed.

I glanced back toward Death, uncomfortable with the scrutiny of the Kree male, only to find my master's avatar gone.

Korath pulled the concealing hood from my hair, yanking the fabric until it cut into my throat as he hissed, "I look forward to watching you bleed."

"There is no shame in the fact I evaded you on the streets of Hala, Korath the Pursuer."

The male growled, his teeth dangerously near my face. With a grip of iron he clutched my neck and forced me forward. There were no more words. It suited me; I had always disliked pointless verbal exchange and needed no direction to follow the Supreme Accuser.

The parade was short.

As it had the days I chased Vitg'jui across the planet, Hala blazed with sunlight. After so long in the dim ship I was blinded without my hood to shield my eyes, my species far more adapted to shadowy places and cloud thick atmosphere. I stood in the Capitol of the Kree Empire, dragged before a mass of strangers eager to see me beaten. My robes were stripped from the top half of my body before I was pressed to my knees. My half-fallen hair hung like a tangled curtain over my breasts, my face complacent as I surveyed the crowd of Kree in all their odd variations. Many blue, the rare nobles, the originals, had come to view my sentence and they looked at me as if I were an oddity.

I locked eyes with a stranger, the shade of his the exact same color as the male behind me.

Ronan himself decreed the verdict for the destruction of property and the murder of twelve citizens in the midst of my battle with Vitg'jui, finding me culpable for their deaths due to my ineptness in killing him swiftly.

Not once was I asked to speak. I was given no chance to offer defense. Ronan simply lifted the cane when his speech was finished and brought it down upon my naked back.

Death's Acolyte or no, pain was pain. It showed on my face. I sucked in a gasp of shocked air in time for another strike to landed just below the last, searing my shoulder blade.

Ronan rained blow after blow down upon me in tempo, like a heartbeat.

The things that run through your mind when under the influence of intense pain are profound and utterly stupid at the same time. Images of my hand buried to the elbow in Vitg'jui's corpse, the feel of his blood warm and wet against my flesh... seemed cold in memory as my back grew into a wildfire and dripped blood on the stone platform with its carvings and writing I could not decipher.

Another blow and I thought of the smell of rain from storms I had weathered as a child. Icy cold nights I had cuddled close to my sister for warmth, the feeling of my mother's hands creating the knots I still wore in my hair.

Shivering in an odd contradiction of the burn and snap of the cane I looked over my shoulder. I don't know what moved me to do it and the cane only fell harder once I saw eyes flared in an angry passion.

Ronan stopped. "Head forward."

The bloody end of the cane was used as he had used his hammer, deftly catching my chin and turning it where he wished it to be. I found the stranger's eyes again, the next lash came, and I whimpered.

Five more strikes and I felt wetness on my cheek. I cried out... I could not stop myself.

There was no mercy. I didn't ask for any, too proud and wise enough to know begging would only earn more punishment.

Over and over the cane stuck my skin, tearing flesh, raising welts. I held the stranger's eyes, imagining them not to be violet, but to be as beautiful as the eyes of Death.

I lost count of the lashes; then I lost consciousness.

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><p><strong>I tried to keep the adult situations incredibly toned down. If it seems too much for this site please PM me with specifics and I will fix them. <strong>

**Now that that's said, on to the fun stuff. Thank you for reading! And thank you to everyone who left me a review on the teaser, who re-followed, and re-favorited. I appreciate the support. **


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**Present Day:**

**- Year 2014-**

**Nebula**

Fresh maintenance of my various augmentations left the tell-tale scent of solvent and mechanical lubricant in the air around me. It suited the environs of the Dark Aster far better than it had ever suited Sanctuary's vast space where my father sat upon his throne.

I suited the Dark Aster.

The Kree ship, stark and dreary, the lights dim and the inhabitants scuttling slaves; I found pleasure there. I also found the lesser beings an easy outlet for my rage and the great one... something worthy of my admiration.

Assigned to Ronan the Accuser I found new instruction, further training, all enforced by strict Kree doctrine and my absolute service. As I was not the only one lent to the Grand Accuser my commitment had to be infinite or she... would take his greater attention as she had taken our father's.

I was not second best. I unflinchingly obeyed. My hours spent lingering near so my dedication would be recognized

Ronan noticed this.

Whereas I was submissive, my sister Gamora, with all her overburdened self-righteousness, had yet to learn her place. She behaved as if Ronan were an inferior, a mission, but she had always failed to see true greatness.

Our father had spoiled her.

Had Gamora been wiser she too would have waited in the ceremonial bathing chambers as I did to attend the Grand Accuser; for it was those small moments of near intimacy that sealed my position. As it stood, I was second only to Korath the Pursuer, yet disgustingly still equal to Gamora.

But not for long.

A data cube had been discovered... I fetched it personally. And even at that moment held the information both the Kree and my father desired. All that remained was the sanction of the Grand Accuser once I had his attention.

Yet he had left me waiting, the male meditating, submerged under the pool of his enemies' blood.

The Exolon monks, the old clerics, circled and began the process of draining the bath, the blue fluid easing slowly down the carved grey metal pit so the holy act of dressing one of the greatest men in the galaxy might commence.

The honor of being allowed near when he was vulnerable, his honed body unarmored, it never failed to excite. But it was not enough.

Ronan rose from his bath, dripping gore and seeping murder Not once did he glance to where I stood at attention. The doddering ancients poured their bowls of water, silent, efficient, behaving in the demeanor the Grand Accuser demanded before their chants began.

Naked he was... extraordinary. Large, well-muscled, defined... bearing not one augmentation. Ronan didn't need them; his inborn power, his ruthlessness, his temper and coldness, all there in the cobalt shade and shadow of flesh.

My eyes had memorized every last angle of that body as if by touch. With his hammer in my hands, I observed the final acts of the rite; orange chalk, a symbol of his duty about to be thrown to prepare his form for armor; yet the male raised his hand.

Ronan's words were dismissive, "The remainder will take place after I return."

The Grand Accuser's Exolon monks seemed to understand the alteration of procedure and did not misstep, they simply spread the war paint, the symbol of Ronan's house and worth around his eyes and down his face... leaving him naked in every other way.

I willed him to turn so I might see the expression that matched his vindictive voice. No attention was paid me, Ronan instead reaching forward to accept a basin of Xandarian blood one of the clerics had ready.

As if they had known he would enter the sanctum forbidden to me.

If only I could be allowed into the inner sanctum where he spent his hours, where he found rest beyond the deep basin of his enemies' heart blood. To cross through that forbidden threshold not even Korath dare approach.

That was the recognition I deserved!

Again, not a glance was spared my direction. Ronan took the golden bowl and walked through the doors no soul dared enter, separated completely from his warriors.

From me.

I had waited times past for him to emerge so that I might witness the remainder of the ceremony... yet in the long hours duty always called me away. I thought to wait again, curious.

I thought to walk forward and trace my palms over the symbols of that door.

"I would not disturb him."

The greedy amusement in her voice, the fact that Gamora had come upon me and I had heard nothing, set my teeth on edge. "I know my place!"

She smiled at me, a derisive little grin. That look, that curving mouth said she was better than me, that she could tease. I hated my sister for making me feel foolish, for always getting more.

"These Kree," Gamora took a languid step nearer, taking the hammer from me to set it aside as if it were only a weapon, "and their piety... What do you suppose he does in there?"

"He prays."

"When I reported this little ritual our father asked me to look inside."

"You are lying." I knew she must be, simply to bait me, Gamora always looking for ways to raise herself and shame me... Her cleverness of knowing where to poke I usually admired.

Gamora continued as if I had not spoken, sly, edging nearer, "And do you know what I found?"

Hating that she had my attention, that she may have seen what was Ronan's... what even I had yet to see, I remained silent and watched her with the blacks of my eyes.

Green lips mouthed the words, "His lover."

Such a thing was impossible. Should Ronan have such physical needs I would be the one to fulfill them.

The hiss of my sister's breath swept like a secret over my ear, "That is what he worships. Take the stars out of your eyes, my sister, and focus on the task at hand. We must find the orb or face our father empty handed."

That warning scratched at my spine. Disappointing Thanos was... beyond physically painful. It was desolating and had wrecked every last part of what I once had been. It had made me greater; for Thanos had found me weak when I was still a child, and tore off my arm so I might have a stronger one. I was made closer to perfection, not only by my cybernetics but by the empowering hatred that had kept me alive and elevated above my other siblings, save Gamora.

"I have succeeded where you could not," I boasted, eager to make her feel even a fraction of the bitterness I breathed. "I have discovered the location of the orb."

"Where?"

The quickness of Gamora's question, the immediate darkening of her expression, they gave me great pleasure... but not nearly as much as the envy that glowed as green as her flesh when I only cocked my head and said nothing.

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><p><strong>One Thousand Years Prior<strong>

**-Year 1012-**

**The Acolyte**

The flesh of my back was flames, searing me down to the bone. Waking with a constrained whimper, pained to even breathe I could only managing short unfulfilling pants that hardly stretched the scabbing ruination of my back. Belly down on a cot, cheek stuck to rough fabric, rivulets of blood and pus caked my flanks, sticky and gritty, dripping down to stain the sheet.

The damage was catastrophic enough that even the smallest thought of movement brought sheer agony.

"You find me ungrateful, Azrael of Regith?"

Facing the wall, turned away from the light drenched room, I thought I convalesced alone. But his voice was unmistakable, and though Ronan had worded the phrase as a question I could hear the malicious taunt on his lips. Furthermore, his use of my name and not my title, the way it rolled off his tongue, was saturated in superiority.

I tried to pull in a shaky breath and found the act too much too soon. All I could manage was a splintered whimper that made little sense.

"You experienced gratification with the first five strikes." His bulk settled on the bunk beside me, the edges of his person slightly visible in my periphery. "It was meant to be a punishment..."

The smallest of smirks came to Ronan's lips, the heat of his hand setting on the nape of my neck. Cruelly he drew that calloused palm downward, directly over the searing open lashes he'd inflicted. Beside my skull I fisted the scratchy sheet and bit back a scream. Wracked with involuntary tremors I fought to suppress... willing stillness to prevent any more unnecessary contact.

I almost swooned.

Ronan stroked further still, a grisly hum of appreciation all I earned for my silence.

I had thought the scathing wreckage could not have possibly blazed further, but under his falsely gentle palm my agony intensified.

He bent down, the feel of his exhale almost cooling. "The spacing is near perfect."

Had I thought beyond the pain, had I greater strength, I would have bit off my own tongue before I allowed the pathetic whine that passed my lips. The long mournful thing... it encouraged him... and I swore I felt his tongue taste a line of a bleeding gash. My throat constricted, a body tried to the limit near gagging. When the weight of that mercilessly hot palm lifted I almost sobbed in relief, only to panic when I saw it descend again. I lost my only remnant of self-possession, fidgeting, half mindless to escape.

It earned the feel of long fingers wrapping about my neck, Ronan restraining me easily.

The weight of his hand returned, only there was something cooling; a draught of relief smeared down my spine.

I did sob at that, the gasping whimpers turning to mewls of broken gratitude.

Whatever he spread over the wreckage drew the heat away, reducing the throb and helping me collect my pain-drugged mind. Listless, my fists released the sheet; I melted into a state of relief and four more passes of medicine were smoothed over the last of my injures. In pulling little tugs of itching sinew, my flesh began to superficially mend, yet the balm did nothing for the deeper hurts; my kidney was bruised, and from the struggle it took to breath, damage was apparent to my ribs.

Ronan's baritone vibrated condescending, superior, "You bore a full hundred lashes. By Kree law your transgressions have been absolved."

Weak air moved in small one word pants, my body still too tender to allow the deeper inhalations required for proper speech. "It is customary to make an offering to an Acolyte. My ship was sacrificed, I require a replacement." I felt the man's weight shift as if he put an elbow to his knee. Turning my head, my eyes found a thick armored thigh far too near. But I would not be cowed now that our episode was done. "I submitted to your laws. Now I have further duties, Supreme Accuser."

"I will provide you with a cruiser, Acolyte," The bite was back, the grit of his jaw hissing words; I had clearly displeased him. "You have the time it takes this planet to fully circle the sun to return it to me. It will hold the heads of three condemned I seek when you do; that will be payment for the vessel should I find your actions satisfactory."

"No."

I got the sense from the low grunt and the way he rolled me on my back to grip the soft underside of my throat Ronan was not a man accustomed to that word. His eyes flamed, flaring so the whites seemed stark between the black paint and vivid irises. They were bloodshot and I could see a vein throbbing near his tar smeared temple.

Under the new attention, my back's fresh skin reopening in some the deeper grooves, I winced. Even pained I repeated the word, "No."

The grip on my throat tightened and disappeared so quickly my blood rushed and vision swam. Reclined, mentally murky, surrounded in the metallic architecture of my small infirmary, I stared into those hateful eyes. He should have known better than to try and manage me in such a way. I was not his servant; I was not an assassin for hire; and his personal vendettas meant nothing to me.

My expressionless offense was there for him to see in the cold lines of a face as naked as the rest of my body.

Ronan dismissed my coldness. As if to taunt, the backs of his fingers slowly ran down my sternum, unblinking, overly-focused eyes following their path. The touch was just clinical enough not to be lewd, more a strange show of force... a declaration Ronan did not fear the taboo of touching an agent of Death naked and weak under him, nor did he fear my aloofness.

"You could almost pass for Kree." It was not his expression that concerned me, for every muscle in his face communicated disgust at what lay exposed before him. It was those eyes seemingly fascinated by my sedate lips, studying the shade of cobalt. "I can practically see our noble blue under the grey of your skin."

Amethyst irises twitched in his skull, looking to the fleshy swell of my breast next.

I was sorely tempted to raise my arm and cover the tightening tip, knowing he was seeking out more proof of indigo pigment in shade of my nipple. But such a thing would have shown my discomfort, been puerile, weak. And as he only brushed the puckered flesh with his gaze, his sneer growing, I lay still.

One large hand slid to engulf my ribcage.

With a thumb moving in a sweep over each separate bone, like climbing down a ladder, he confirmed, "You have the same number of ribs and the general form of a Kree, but you are more slender, lack the muscle density of our females. You are too _soft_." The last word was said as if the concept was revolting.

When his palm moved to test the skin of my belly I imprisoned his wrist, obstructing his exploration, and spoke evenly, "Do not confuse diplomacy for weakness. I willingly submitted to your punishmentas I have much work to do and an unwarranted altercation with the Kree Empire would only complicate my duty. I allowed you to maim my body, though I could have prevented it. I will not allow more, Ronan. Remember to whom you speak. I am no mercenary. I serve no living master."

A deep growl, almost inaudible, seeped from beneath his chestplate. His burning gaze swept over me once more, Ronan standing, gaining more height with each passing second. It was meant to be an insult, "You are nothing but an offshoot of our pure blood breeding with an inferior species millennia ago; a shadow."

Face blank, the full white of my eyes calm at the affecting male, I forced my body upright, pulling the sheet to wrap its stained fabric like a tunic over my nakedness. There was no need for dramatics or grand speeches. I would not linger.

Nodding once in valediction to the towering Supreme Accuser, my corporal form vanished in the only act of sorcery I could manage weakened as I was.

I knew of one, who was actually many, residing in Hala. A being, of sorts, who would grant any reasonable request I might make - the thing the Kree worshiped as a god. The ancient Supreme Intelligence, the collection of their history's greatest retained living brains, feared death and would certainly not wish to attract my master's attention.

I appeared unannounced in its inner sanctum, still dressed in a swath of fabric soaked in my blood and stinking of medicine.

Though the act of standing was difficult, with respect I offered a calm explanation, "I require a ship."

The sound of many voices answered in unison, tones from deferential to spiteful, echoing from the bio-computer, "Your request is granted."

I bowed, concealing a grimace as the action stretched the oozing scabs on my back. "I thank you."

* * *

><p><strong>Knowhere<strong>

Oddly placed upward lilts, too much thought between words, always made speeches from my host... eerie and equally perverse. "Do you not wish to drink? Adver Silac is known to be one of the most divine flavors in the universe. This vintage is over a million years old."

A chalice with its green tentacled plant garnish waited before me, a little further Taneleer Tivan lingered, seated as I was, appearance as implacable as mine. He sipped his drink, puckering his lips as if in contemplation of its palate, then looked back to my face.

"I have lost my labris. I require a new weapon."

"I always enjoy our little chats, Azrael."

He would keep me waiting; the Collector always did, with his unhinging thinking and darting conversation. Once I had sat in his sordid museum for three weeks… as his guest... watching his little assistant flutter around and pretend she was not curiously peeking at me.

It seemed she'd been replaced… though they all looked so alike I was not certain. At some point in the steady grind of his existence Taneleer decided, for reasons I did not care to know, that pretty pink Krylorians made the best servants. He dressed them all the same, used the same name for each of them... like little carbon copies of the original who had died eons before my birth.

Wearing gaudy clothing, fur... tired eyes ringed in kohl... in the form of an aging earth human the Collector was far more perceptive than any Terran. "Your back, you hold it from the chair."

It had been less than a week since my caning. "I am in pain, Taneleer."

"Ahhhh, a sensation of life." He took another messy slurp of his cocktail, pinky up. "Drink."

Reaching forward with my burned hand, the ruined fingers still fused together as I had yet to seek out a medic, I lifted the stem of the fine cut crystal and brought it to my lips. Whatever it was coursed down my throat like a living thing: crawling, rolling, cartwheeling through my veins straight to the gnarled grossness of my burned appendage. Immediately the blisters broke and bubbled. Weeping nodules formed, reeking gas escaped, as did a great deal of black grossness that spattered the table top.

Slipping, the ugly drink left my grasp, landing fortuitously upright but splashing a drop on the stained mosaic table top. My skin followed, seeming to melt right off the bone... revealing pale grey flesh whole and unmarred, as if a glove had been removed.

Testing the bones, flourishing my fingers, I stared. Full mobility had been returned; old scars lost.

He spoke before I processed the magnitude of the event. "The flavor, how did it taste?

Licking my bottom lip, lowering my new hand in an attempt at the protocol the man was mired in, I replied, "I would liken it to salt water."

In reality, it had been divine and indescribable. The Collector, aware my dry monotone was in jest, felt free to ask me something best not spoken of before witnesses, "When you destroyed something sssssoooo precious, a fragment of the… actual… Serpent Crown, how did you feel?"

Carina grew mesmerized... but not by Taneleer's words. It was the table she gawked at where, beside my shed skin, lingered small scattered drops of spilled Adver Silac, the diminutive female unconsciously edging closer. Watching her, I traced a new flawless finger down the stem of the chalice and gave the Collector what he wanted, "Accomplished. Even to ignite the fragment in my grip required every lingering trace of sorcery I possessed. To burn it completely I stole kinetic energy from the dead, over-hot planet which left me weakened and subsequently arrested by Kree Accuser Corps." My words stopped, yet my host lowered his chin in a way that signaled he expected me to continue. I did. "I allowed them to cane me."

The Collector gave one of his trilling giggles, his fingers fluttering, tapping together before him. "May I see?"

"No."

"Please." One bushy white brow rose, creasing the weathered skin of his forehead.

My point was made again, "I need a weapon."

"Show me…" he sang, the man's creepy excitement palpable.

I had yet to replace my robes and the Kree Supreme Intelligence wanted me gone so quickly I had left Hala still clutching the stolen sheet to my breast. There had been little provided on the ship, leaving me with the first thing I had found upon arrival to Knowhere.

Standing in the laborer's jumpsuit I reached for the zipper at my throat and drew it down, turning as I did. The top half of the discolored yellow fabric dipped, the sleeves sagging down my arms and, ignoring the eyes of many captive races, I exposed my back to the Collector.

A hand brushed, tugging the fabric lower so the entirety of the marks could be viewed at once, Taneleer having moved far faster than I had followed. "How... pretty."

I had yet to look at them, no more than a cursory glance over the shoulder, and felt nothing beautiful beyond the fact that I had taken them in service to my calling.

I felt a poke, the marks angry and red… the Adver Silac potion having done nothing for the multitude of half healed lash wounds. "Which Kree caned you in _this_ way?"

At the attention of many, the Collector's zoo gawking, some tapping the glass of their enclosures, I felt discomfort beyond the sting of Taneleer's prods. "I stood charged by Ronan the Accuser who both judged me and meted out his decreed punishment. One hundred lashes in view of the population."

A wistful sort of snort hummed behind me. "How lenient... you must have been disappointed they did not find you worthy of execution."

I pulled up my top and turned to find Taneleer even closer, inches from my face, and spoke, "I do believe you would be lonely if I were to pass into the bliss of death."

"Bliss…" A slow eye roll and huff. "Life, Death, Bliss. It's all so… boring." The B was exaggerated, the man spitting slightly on my face.

The grate of my zipper droned at my sharp tug. "You have a purpose, that's why you linger."

He singsonged, fists under his chin as he cooed unsmiling, "I… do."

The near immortal and I were not friends, but in the oddest sense of the word we could, when the particulars made sense, be colleagues.

"Shall you stay here while you heal," He seemed to think over the offer, his eyes wandering his collection. "I have a few enclosures available."

How long had he lived before he'd forgotten what made life… life? I smirked, amused, and skirted the contemplating alien. Retaking my seat, I lifted the drink with my new hand and sipped again.

The taste had changed, no longer the cool questing chill in my gut. The second sip brought warmth... a sensation of swallowing clouds. Whatever damage I bore internally floated right out my mouth in an unexpected hiccup. For the first time in a week I was able to draw more than a paltry breath.

I raised the glass to wipe away the last of my injuries and reclaim the flesh of my back.

"Ah, ah, ah," Taneleer leaned over and took what must be a priceless ancient cup before it found my mouth again. "Not another sip. I like the marks. They stay. And before you get snippy," His sat overly gracious, ridiculous, and droned, "I will not give you a new weapon _but _I will reacquire your old one."

That was a far greater gift. That labris had been mine for so long I already mourned its loss. "Thank you, Taneleer."

He gestured to a cage hanging from the ceiling. "Which cube would you prefer?"

I smiled, the white of my eyes glowing just a little as power warmed my belly. "The ideas you get, old one. I will stay in your spare room."

"I forgot I had one of those…" his voice trailed off only to boom a moment later, "CARINA! Prepare the spare room!"

The skulking pink assistant was caught where she peeked over a crate to spy. Once Taneleer threw a sidelong glance with an expression threatening she was for more troublesome than useful, Carina scampered down the hall to living quarters her master never used as he never slept.

"Noooow," the collector rubbed his lips together, seeming put out by his latest trail of thought. His hands came together, steepled, and he watched me draw another deep pleasing breath. "For as long as your minuscule little life continues, insignificant female, I suggest you avoid him."

I was smiling at his sullen words, amused, truly. "Have no further interest in Kree space or further involvement with the Accuser Corps."

"What?"

He was slipping again, too far in his contemplations to communicate properly. "Ronan the Accuser, Taneleer. The one whose lash marks on my back you found appealing."

"No, no, no." The weight of his heavy eyes made me feel as tired as he always looked. "Why would I speak of him? We were discussing Thanos. He would eat you; your kind tastes like duck."

I smirked. "What is a duck?"

"That." In one sweeping gesture, he pointed to a cube where a feathered creature with a bill stood.

It waved at me.

Certainly, it was not an appealing looking bird creature. Glancing back to my host I made sure Taneleer understood the duties each of us had in this arrangement, "While you collect my labris and while I act as your gracious guest… there are things I will need."

"Trivialities..." Unsmiling glee showed in his over excited movements. The remainder of the Collector's drink was slurped down, Taneleer Tivan offering a hiss of delight when it was finished. "May I weave your hair?"

I was not even sure how to answer that, so I didn't.

* * *

><p><strong>I am having such a blast writing this fic and so happy to share it with you! More coming soon. :)<strong>


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Present Day:**

**- Year 2014-**

**Nebula**

Her words, they ate at me. Gamora had always known just what buttons to push to unbalance my composure. As the hours wore on, as time crawled by and no Ronan appeared, I could not help but feel as if something grand _had_ been denied me... again.

That is why I found myself pacing outside the door to his sanctum.

No duty came to call me away, no pointless necessity to draw me from where Ronan prayed. Glaring at the lingering, silent clerics brought some respite. They knew their place and had already begun to set up the necessities for the further ritual. They were calm, seemingly chanting silently with the small movements of their lips. In this I agreed with Gamora. Kree piety was… an excess of devotion.

But true devotion I understood.

I understood it deeply.

The door would open and I would see for myself the image of a man after hours of prayer, a focused Ronan I would honor with the news I had not yet been able to share. I was worthy of that room and he would see.

I stilled, stood at attention, and regained composure.

Without the fall of my steps there was no noise in the chamber, not even the soft sound of the Exolon monks' robes dragging over the floor; I stood in a vacuum.

I could hear nothing of whatever transpired beyond that great impenetrable door, the unspoken barrier between me and absolute knowledge of the ship. Imaginings of Ronan kneeling, praying, making offerings played in my mind, the remainder of my attention darting over the various carvings, old Kree symbols they no longer employed, I wondered at the ancientness installed within the Kree fleet's most advanced warship. The way that portal was set back into the metal of the walls, into the dark, it looked almost as if the ship had been built around it.

How had I not noticed that before?

I was reaching out to touch, to viscerally know those symbols when the scrape of stone, the complaint of old hinges, barked in a way my natural fingers instantly jumped, retracting as if threatened. The door swung open. Blazing violet eyes met mine, vicious as if he could already feel my neck snapping under his grip. But I was far too distracted by the empty bowl and the smears of blue blood dripping from Ronan's hands, his mouth, his partially engorged cock to back away as I should have.

"Ronan I—"

"You would dare approach what you know is forbidden?" The booming accusation shook my bones.

Schooling my expression into one of capability I bowed in supplication. "I have located the orb."

That seemed the only answer worthy of reprieve. Detailing the location, I found half of his mouth curved; not in a smile, his expression was something far coarser. It spoke of a sensation I knew intimately: covetous desire and ageless rage.

There was nothing Ronan wanted more than to see the Xandarians eradicated. I had helped him near his goal. Even my horrid father would be impressed. My concerns seemed to fade with the reality of success, but they would not leave me fully, not when the Kree male looked from me a moment later as if bored.

Ronan dropped the basin, its clang off the floor ignored as he walked back to take position so his attendants might finish the ritual he had set aside. The hags pressed the door shut behind him, the sounds of many locks engaged.

Circling so I might continue to impress him, my eyes went back to the organ still half swollen, watching fresh water poured over blue skin to rinse what looked to be more than blood.

It could not be… It could _not_ be as it looked. No living thing save Ronan passed that door. There was nothing, nothing, on the other side. The mechanical quality of my voice modulated despite my attempt to keep it even, "Is it the Supreme Intelligence you pray to, Ronan?"

From his mouth came a vulgar sound... he was laughing. The noise spread like slow moving poison. It stung and I began to grasp, by his demeanor, his derisive expression, the state of his flexed body, that there was something truly horrific beyond that door. There had to be for him to look at it in such a way.

His amusement faded as quickly as it came, a scathing reply burned me, "Centuries before you were born, Nebula, I destroyed the Supreme Intelligence when it tried to deny me my due. Your information on the Kree seems lacking to not know of such a thing."

He had killed the god of his people?

My eyes went to the door, a door I was growing to hate, as if I might discover what was he'd turned to in place of the god he killed. I should not have spoken further, but I could not withhold my bitter tongue, "Was your ritual effective?"

Ronan stood a little straighter, muscles rippling in a manner of pride, as if there was great significance to what had taken place behind that carved door. "Incredibly effective."

"Whose blood was in the basin?"

The way his head snapped my direction and his lip curled to show teeth stained the deepest black let me know I had gone too far. Ronan's eyes narrowed; the male growled, "Yours will fill it next should you continue to wallow in curiosity.

To have dug my nails into his skin at that moment... "You may use me in any way you see fit, Ronan."

My lips parted, my eyes locked on the menace and glory of his expression. Again I dared a glance to the brief outline of his cock, shown lightly in profile, and saw it swelling afresh before a loincloth was placed for him to step into. But his eyes were not on me, I had not earned such a fantastic reaction. Ronan again was taken with the ancient stone door, positively triumphant as his eyes ran over the symbols.

The orange clouds of chalk were thrown and the chanting began.

My jaw would not unhinge, not when I kept it sealed to keep in a scream of rage. I had just offered myself to him and it was as if he had not even heard me. Not once in the years I had served had I been disobedient; I rarely questioned, but I knew the rolling boil of a world against me and I felt the strongest desire to disembowel something.

I went to my knee and offered the hammer to its owner, hanging my head in supplication, in bitterness, for reasons I hardly understood. "The orb, Ronan, I will retrieve it for you at once."

Indigo hands reached out, lifting the weighty weapon, Ronan giving no answer to my petition.

"Ronan." Korath entered the chamber. "Irani Rael has dispatched a Nova Corps operative to negotiate the Kree ceasefire. He arrived while you were indisposed and awaits your judgment."

Ronan spoke, his voice rich and as dark as the gaping sense of disappointment in my chest. "The orb has been located. Retrieve it from planet Morag."

I could not hiss my denunciation of Ronan choosing Korath over me. I had overstepped my bounds and the punishment was obvious. Instead I was left behind, forgotten, in a room where something as simple as standing too close to a stone door had lowered me in the mind Ronan the Accuser.

The men left and I did not follow.

Hatred for that door grew; I could taste it, bitter, on my tongue. I looked to one of the lingering holy men and drew my knife as I approached.

"What lies beyond that door?"

The pug-like face did not so much as flinch at the resounding menace I projected. Indifferent to the edged blade I pressed against his throat, the old man simply said, "The Dark Aster."

My scowl only grew.

* * *

><p><strong>One thousand years prior<strong>

**-Year 1012-**

**The Acolyte**

Endless millennia had warped Taneleer Tivan psyche from his original purpose; due to the ravages of agelessness, his collection sometimes expanded beyond the gathering of life forms. It was for that reason he had other things piled up in corners of his museum on Knowhere, mostly forgotten, and a great many covered in dust.

Carina dared not approach them, and I had to wonder how many previous Carinas had found their end under a tumble of piled junk or by exploring unknown objects which potentially bore curses or powers beyond their understanding.

When my visits with the Collector spanned more than a day, I tired of his idle chitchat. Always I found myself exploring his mysteries, sorting them into what was useful, what was junk, and what I intended to burn before any foul things might be touched by another.

A brazier, similar to the ones kept in my temple, blazed behind me, the open flames frowned at by my host when ignited, but soothing to me. I fed the fires with his belongings and used the light to see what more was hidden, tossed aside, and forgotten.

For two days I explored the pile, ignoring his clicking tongue and conversations with prospective and current purveyors. The drabble between them was all the same... cash, credit, favors. Knowing the Collector in a different sense made the show painfully uninteresting; especially when there was practical knowledge before me, right at my fingertips, even if it might have been caked with dust.

I had found a mirror that when looked upon offered up the face of a demon banging on the glass for escape. It was burned. Books full of histories and languages I could not even begin to fathom tossed into ragged piles. Those I cleaned and found a shelf for, displaying the treasures in an attempt that their owner might remember the past.

History was full of cycles, even I in my short years and, as Taneleer would say, insignificant lifespan, understood that.

Then there were manuals, and I grew fascinated.

I found texts on chemistry, outdated yet elegant. The blueprints for palaces on planets I had never heard of, recipes, notebooks outlining brilliant horticulture, and, of course, writings on sorcery.

From that moment forward my hours were devoted to study.

Lying on my belly, the enclosure of some ancient massive serpent slithering and hissing below me, I read through a book of magic older than my home world. The language was unknown to me, but the key figures were transcendent, as if what lay on that page was the malformed ancestor to more modern transmutation. Moving my fingertips in the practice of invocation, I worked to comprehend the lesson on an alternate form of matter. Hours passed, the snake slept, and the music of the hiss faded.

Honestly, I was a poor conjuror. My greatest skill lay in the manipulation of energies.

While the ancient one seemed enthralled with some new piece in his hands, Karina snuck close and whispered to me, "How do you do it?"

My brows drew down, and I looked away from my study to see her little pink fingers and the top half of her head peeking over the rim of the snake's enclosure. "Do what?"

"Shhhhshshh." There was a moment of panic in those kitten eyes. "I'll be punished."

Leaning on my elbow, I angled my body to look at her, my eyes saying all actions had consequences good or bad; a creature of her age should understand that. Yet, it was obvious whatever had brought her to work for the Collector seemed less than pleasing to the Krylorian. I asked softer, "If you fear retribution then why make the effort to speak to me?"

Her pretty eyes darted back toward the man in question. "He respects you."

It was difficult not to pity the sound of desperation in her voice. "No, he does not."

"He allows you the use of his given name. Allows you freedom to touch the 'off limits' area. The Collector is helping you… free of charge."

"He is helping himself."

The look of innocence, whether studied or inborn, in her wide eyes paired well with her plea, "Will you help me?"

I blinked, remembering how she'd stared at the spilled drops of Adver Silac... as if she wanted to lick them up, and asked, "What do you desire?"

Her voice was as fragile as her courage. "Freedom."

After five days in the Collector's care I was healing, clean, well fed, but still not adorned in the black robes which broadcasted my purpose. I was wearing women's clothing and the little helper had no idea what freedom I could offer. "Do you know what I am?"

"A trader."

"I am an Acolyte. I could give you the release of death; absolute freedom where he could never touch you."

There was a squeal and the girl let go of the container, stumbling back. The Collector noticed at once. "Do not frighten the help, Azrael! She has chores. Do. Not. Distract. Her."

"There is nothing to fear in death." I spoke to the Collector but my words were for the girl.

"Do not mind her, simple Carina. The female dislikes being surrounded by so much stagnant life. Squash a bug; that might be a refreshing change of pace for her." The man's attention went to stacking bars, preparing payment for whoever might be next invited into his horror show.

"But there are no bugs, master." Carina's timid attempt to respond in a pleasing manner would have been funny had it not been so sad. "I clean carefully so vermin might not accumulate."

Before the man could respond with subtle taunts the girl half understood, I lifted the grimoire and pointed to a drawing. "Taneleer, what does this symbol mean?"

Peering through his complicated spectacles, even from across the massive museum, he over pronounced his answer, "Kin-e-tic. Do _not_ try that spell in here."

Interesting.

And that was it. The best way to handle the Collector's madness - redirect it. Hopefully it was a lesson the scampering assistant had recognized, though I doubted it.

My attention went back to the near crumbling pages, my finger hovering over the sorcery, trying to piece it into something useful.

A sigh unsettled the fine hairs at my temple. Startled, I turned my head to find Taneleer right beside me. Mimicking my position he lay on his belly, kicking his feet in the air as he cooed, "This was once the Asgardian Queen Frigga's. See this here," his white gloved finger pointed to some writing on the margin, "her notes. Makes it worth more."

The elegant script did seem queenly. "Neither of us care for money."

"No. No, that is true. We," he turned to a page I somehow had yet to see, muttering, "care for _value._"

I hummed, looking back to the book.

"Asgard. Interesting place… so pretentious. Just last year." The man closed his eyes, the skin creasing at the corners as he tried to place the moment. "No, thousands of years ago," he corrected, "a specimen came to visit me. Have you met Odin?"

"No."

"Neither have I."

Ignoring his nonsense, I looked to the page he presented and understood enough to immediately know that spell was very dangerous. Swiftly, I covered the symbols with my hand, unsure who was watching from what container, who could see, who might grasp the horror on that page.

"You should not show this to others!" I hissed low enough the overly curious Carina would not hear.

"The Other?"

"I do not speak of the Chitauri boot licker. No more word games, Taneleer. How dare you keep such a thing!"

His lips, fleshy with the slim black tattoo down the middle, came to my ear and whispered, "You should learn this… little drain of a spell. Think of all you could do with those abominations you so dislike. It would be so much easier to sever them from their _foul magics_." The last two words were said with flared eyes, raised eyebrows, and creepy sincerity.

And that is exactly what it looked like on the page. A spell that teased life force from one body to the next, sucking them dry like a vampire. It would slow immortals; even the Collector might be harmed if the spell were wielded by a greater sorcerer than I. "Who else have you shown this to?"

He pursed his mouth as if swishing fluid over his tongue and watched me differently, almost engaged beyond his absurdities. I could see the ancientness, the age, the years and years and years of his purpose. In that moment, a fraction of what he really was, of what billions of life forms believed they longed for, appeared… and I felt a slow spreading fear. Of all things, an endless existence like his... there was nothing that would tempt me to it.

To be one of the ancient ones was to be lost, cursed. Though I doubt they recognized their infection.

"If it makes you so uncomfortable, go to Asgard; give this back to Frigga. When you return I will have your pretty little axe and you will describe the exact look on her face when you hand her this book."

Looking back at the tome, at the level of power one could gain from it, I could not trust it in the Collector's keeping where it might be forgotten again and picked up by another. And though I may not have much cared for the Asgardians, they did take matters of danger seriously… when it might affect them. That spell certainly could and the grimoire was beyond my skill to destroy. "I will need robes."

"You are already wearing them." He tugged a bit of the white hair pooling around my suddenly black clad body. "Before you go I will weave your hair the way I like it best; can't have you looking a mess in front of the queen."

"And how am I going to get to Asgard?"

"Ohh," he relocated us in a quick burst of movement to corner of his highest floor and gestured grandly, "through that door, of course."

Already my hair felt tight against my skull under the hood of my robes, woven in the mere seconds it took the great being to alter our location. The book, and I checked it was the same book, not trusting the man who was clearly eager for me to take it, was in my hands.

The Collector walked away, back in his slithering mode of contemplation, seemingly deep in thought and muttering as if he'd already forgotten me.

I hesitated, unsure of the proper path. Looking at the red cracked leather binding, the engraved art of high magic on the cover, I felt my hand already reaching for the door. There was no going back, the instant my fingers brushed the knob the power of the Collector's stolen segment of the Bifrost bridge gripped me.

In a breath I was pulled to the end of the path by the gatekeeper of the nine realms.

Heimdall, the great Asgardian Watcher didn't even turn his head at my appearance, he just spoke, his voice deep and the reverberation rich. "You will not find much welcome here, Acolyte."

Yet he had allowed me over the Bifrost the instant I had reached for it.

Standing in the draping black robes that spoke of my purpose, my head hooded, and voice direct I explained, "I have not come to partake in Asgardian revelries. I am here as a courtesy to us all. Please, take me to Frigga."

The great sword in his hands was thrust deeper into a mechanism at the center of the observatory. The circular room shifted into a new pattern, meaningless to me, but oddly beautiful. When the act was finished the glowing orange brightness of Heimdall's eyes at last moved in their sockets, looking through me. "Come, mortal."

Usually when a greater being called me a mortal it was meant in slander. I did not sense that from the dark skinned giant, so I offered a sort of benediction, "Your golden apples only slow aging. You too will one day die, Heimdall."

"That is an unpopular sentiment amongst my people." Again politeness as he escorted me over the bridge to Asgard. "We relish life, perhaps more than most races."

That I could not deny. "Yet your kind are always eager to go to war; a natural balance between longevity and a quick end."

The giant hummed in agreement. "We have shed much blood to maintain order in the nine realms."

I glanced at the man, the light of the Bifrost illuminating the great armored gatekeeper in the dark of space around us. "There is more universe beyond the nine realms, and it continues without Asgardian interference."

Heimdall smirked at me, a small thing I was surprised he shared. "It is not often alien species choose not to grovel. We are more accustomed to scraping and worship."

"I mean no disrespect. My kind has no gods; the idea of worship in that manner is foreign to me."

"Do you not worship Death?"

"I serve the abstract."

"Is that not the same?"

"No." I had nothing more to add, so I simply looked around once we entered the disk of their world. It was night, the beauty of their city glimmering and not at all harsh on my eyes. Asgardian architecture sprouted grand, soft in color, nothing like the stark Collector's museum or the shadowy ships of the Kree. Stonework and abundant plant life reminded me of a brighter version of my home world.

Everything was in bloom, the city celebrating life… rarely feeling the cold grip of death. But Asgardians could die: in battle, in rare illness. In essence they were no different than I was; though my lifespan to them passed in little more than a blink of an eye.

In their measure I was a speck.

Parallels to my home or no, I disliked Asgardians, no matter how sweet smelling the air of their world or genteel my guide happened to be. It was the brash arrogance perhaps, glittering under their skin; the way the found themselves to be the center of the universe.

The bifrost ended at the palace gates, my stoic guide utterly silent as we passed the guard and entered. The throne room was empty, our journey instead down gilded halls, beyond the loud evening revelries of the palace residents. Most we passed hardly spared me a glance, but one bumbling drunkard careened right into me.

His clumsiness only made the perpetrator laugh, his handsome brow bobbing as he teased my guide, "Heimdall, you have woman with you. Step inside and join us."

The monotone of my rejection was cut short, "Asgardian—"

"Thor," the man pressed, offering his name and eyeing me as if playing a game I did not know the rules to.

It couldn't be... "_This_ is the son of sorceress Frigga?"

"Hard to believe isn't it?" Behind me another answered, voice playful, a touch deriding, earning a sloppy grin on Thor's face.

Clutching the book hidden in my robes, I looked at the figure who thought of himself as the God of Thunder and felt uneager to remain in his presence, or on Asgard for that matter, "I intended no offense, Thor."

"Your tone would state otherwise." The elder prince only seemed more amused. Blue eyes twinkled, Thor leaning down to see what the hood concealed. "You are almost as arrogant as my father. Take off the cloak and have a drink with us, strange maiden. I apologize for running into you."

"No."

A chuckle from the unseen one behind me. "I never thought I'd see the day a woman turned you down so bluntly, brother."

Creeping discomfort moved me to raise my hand and pull back the hood so they might see I was not of their world, or any of the worlds they claimed to rule. "I am not here to drink ale or listen to bloated stories of battle. No disrespect, Asgardian, but I have greater business to attend to and I need to see Frigga at once."

I was unsure if it was the pallor of my skin or the pure white of my eyes, an anomaly on any world, that made Thor's smile falter. The fool seemed to sober and even look marginally apologetic. "Yes, my lady. Forgive me."

"Do forgive my simpleton brother; he has been drinking for days." The man behind me stepped forward and the dark haired, slender Asgardian wound my arm around his. "I will escort you to our mother."

Uncomfortable with the uninvited contact I nodded, face blank, eager for the duty to end. "Thank you."

"Loki," he supplied, far more diplomatic than the golden haired leering fool, pulling me away from the madness and into the dark.

The watcher, Heimdall, did not proceed with us and the loss of his presence brought more of the scratching unease in my guts. The book seemed to almost vibrate against me, my latest guide smiling far too easy once we were walking down an unlit corridor open to the night air.

As if to make paltry conversation and break the awkward silence, Loki asked, "You have come for the axe?"

These Asgardians should not have known of my labris and with each further step I took it was clear I had been expected. The Collector had manipulated the situation so I would willingly go to their overly sweet smelling planet with a book of spells in my possession that, I was now absolutely sure, should not be there.

Furthermore, with Loki's arm about mine I could not wield magic to teleport.

Even Heimdall had warned me I would be unwelcome, yet took me personally into the epicenter of the palace.

I had been fooled and foolish.

I sighed, "Describe the axe."

"Worn, little, dark metaled thing." Loki shrugged, a friendly smile on his lips as he watched me from the corner of his eye. "Nothing special really to draw an Acolyte all this way."

There was no point in concealing my disgust. "Yet things are not what they seem."

The tenor of his voice, the pleasure the second prince took in the words, warned me further, "Are they ever, Sorceress?"

Our steps ended and I faced the pale second son. "Usually."

"If you believe that you have missed half the story and a good portion of the fun."

A door opened before us and Frigga appeared, waiting in a room filled with the soft light of fires. Beautiful, her face was somewhat aged, little lines forming beside her eyes when she smiled graciously. "Welcome, Acolyte."

"Queen Frigga," I moved toward the seat she gestured for me to take and explained, "It seems the evening has become something beyond what I anticipated. May I see the labris?"

"Loki," the woman spoke to her son. One word all he needed to leave and fetch my weapon.

The door closed, leaving us alone; the fact she had no guards a clear sign I was considered no threat.

Whatever was going on, I needed clarification as to my part in it. "May I ask how you acquired my weapon?"

"The Collector laid it at my feet," Frigga took a seat on the divan across from me, "Informing me I should expect you."

My blue lips thinned. "When?"

"It's been months," she offered warmly.

How long had I been at the Collector's museum? Four days… maybe five. No expression betrayed my internal misgivings, but the beauty of the fires and the kindness of my hostess did nothing to ease my troubled mind. Taneleer was using me, had been from the first sip of Adver Silac; his sick stolen payment, no doubt, for things I had no knowledge of.

Time was written on my flesh had I only taken notice. My back no longer ached; the skin did not itch or sting from healing. So how long had been lost staring into the pages of a forbidden book before Carina spoke and pulled my attention away? Weeks? Months? Years?...

The door opened, Loki, his green cape flowing behind him walked forward. Extending his hands he displayed the axe. It reeked of magic.

"That is not my labris."

"But the book you carry is mine," Frigga added, her smile fading, her face almost stern but not ungentle.

There was something beyond me at work, but I had a duty and would not hand over the book. "Carried here by an Acolyte so you might destroy it."

Frigga asked, "Can you even read it?"

Of course I could. "In the wrong hands that spell could be used to seek a stunted immortality. I cannot allow it to exist."

"Worked in reverse it heals and is tied to that page. The spell is already enacted, no other can wield it, in my possession no other ever will. But no, I cannot destroy it. If the book were harmed the magic would be lost with it."

There was a deeper issue here. "Who is it sustaining?"

Frigga raised her hand and offered calmly, "No person, I assure you."

Pulling in a deep breath of apple blossom scented air I looked to the fires, grown fainter from my anxiety, and understood why this room had been chosen and fires lit in warm weather. Frigga knew how to gauge my feelings by the changes in the flames, as my emotions hardly ever showed themselves in my stony expression or tone. I was not just a courier, I was _the _courier they expected, and they had prepared for me. Every step planed far ahead of my arrival.

The book I had been leafing through over a snake's cage was older than this world, drafted by the very first of their kind. Tired, I breathed the only plausible necessity of that spell to these people, "It sustains your tree…"

Of course it was their sacred tree and the Golden Apples of Idunn's they needed to keep their extended existence, great beauty, and god-like power. For that reason they would protect it, and I would die for seeing it.

From the shapelessness of my robes I withdrew the tome, frowning as I looked upon the blighted thing. The Collector had purposefully shown me that spell, forcing the Queen's hand, and sacrificing my life in a way that brought no honor to my master.

Frustration made me want to throw it on the glowing coals before me, though such an act would have been pointless. "So why involve an Acolyte, Frigga?"

The kind smile returned, she looked me dead in the eye and praised, "Very few can touch that book."

The dimming flames demonstrated my displeasure. "I have seen Taneleer touch it."

Loki spoke, "Are you sure you saw what you think you saw?"

No, and I was wiser than to have fallen for it. But I had fallen for it. "And what did you trade him in exchange for this tome and my manipulation?"

Frigga offered an apologetic nod. "That I cannot tell you."

"There is always balance, Frigga. A being of your age knows this. That grimoire is dangerous to far more than the spoiled, self-righteous Asgardians."

Suddenly she looked older, concerned. "It is no slight on your Mistress."

I could not say and would not presume to speak for Death.

Turning my head toward the third member of our party I found Loki holding the axe as if he might swing it, yet wielding it incorrectly. "Your hands are choked up too high on the grip. If you wish to plant it properly into my skull you must slide down and hold it by the throat."

My dry tone drew out the man's charming smile. He nodded thanks and adjusted his grip. "I'm more of a dagger man."

"I am sorry, Acolyte… but you have read the spell." Frigga offered. And she did look sorry, troubled by what all three of us knew must happen next. "The threat to my family, my people, should you ever try to cast it..." The woman, seemingly humble, hesitated, "I am sorry."

There was no time to consider the fact our exchange seemed to take place in secret and I wondered if even Odin knew I haunted his palace. My last moments involved little more than thoughts of my sweet mother and the fires normalizing as I anticipated death. My gaze met the bright eyes of the man swinging the axe.

The feeling of my skull splitting under the force of the blade was acute. The fires extinguished, the world went dark, and I could swear I heard the familiar sound of falling rain when warm blood ran down my face.

"Mistress, a man has come from off world and demands to speak with you."

Air blasted into my lungs as if it were the first breath drawn outside the womb. Surging up, bedding pooled around me and pain burst through my skull to the point I could feel the edged weapon striking again. Convulsing, my hand flew automatically to collect the brain matter spilling out in a river of blood… only to find no blood… no wound… no mark that could possibly be responsible for such agony.

The robes around me stank of Asgardian apple blossoms, my hair was still tightly woven into several crowning fragments; yet somehow I was on my home world, in bed where the air was damp from rain.

I was also very much alive.

Claiming my mortality had not been the purpose of that black-bladed, magic saturated weapon. It was my memory that seemed to be dying, the symbols seeping out of a wound that did not exist, my knowledge of the cursed book and the spell becoming unmade.

I clung to splinters. I refused. I felt fury and found myself left with little more than fragmented knowledge of a kind smile, a wicked son, and the orange eyes of the Asgardian who had walked me over the Bifrost.

"Mistress…"

Glancing through the fingers pressed against my face I found the temple attendant staring, waiting for acknowledgement.

Panting for breath I asked, "What man has come?"

"A Kree by the name of Ronan the Accuser."

* * *

><p><strong>I'm back from vacation, hurrah! Hope you enjoyed the tiny crossover in this chapter. It's not going to happen often but other Marvel characters will pop up now and then. As always, thank you to everyone who reviewed! I love you for taking the time and really enjoy hearing your thoughts. <strong>


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**Present Day:**

**- Year 2014-**

**Nebula**

I noticed Gamora seemed to slither about wherever I was. I ate, she ate. I found rest on my bunk, she lingered on hers. Subtlety was not her forte. Indirectness was not mine.

"Sister." I turned my head where it rested on my arm, lids blinking once as my cybernetics took a sweep of her physical status. "You make me sick."

Gamora's foolhardy smirk grew. She leaned back against the bulkhead and took a bite of the fruit gripped in her hand. "Do you remember that time we played kill the Chitauri? That first time?"

We'd been girls, bored of our current instructor. When he'd given us his back we'd leapt from the asteroid to hopscotch through space on a mission of who could cull the greatest numbers. I'd won by three kills. Thanos had only whipped me. He had broken both of Gamora's legs ... for losing when she was already accepted as the greater assassin. He claimed she'd let me win.

I'd relished the screams ... yet also rarely won the forbidden game again.

"I remember."

"Once when we were running I peeked my head into a small cavity of space. The dimension on the other side was not the one we knew. I saw Asgard. I had never smelt air so fresh."

"Loki's little crevice," the disgusted noise I could not hold back. "A fool if there ever was one."

"He loved his false father as we never loved ours, but could not change his nature. It worked against him."

Gamora was wrong. I knew what she had overlooked in her smug poise. Loki ruled Asgard in Odin's place with none the wiser just who sat the throne. There was more than one pocket to peak through... and I watched always. I took a lesson. Cunning was greater than my sister's forthright brutality.

"What is the Dark Aster, Gamora?"

Pretty brows drew together; my sister sagged against the wall and swallowed the pulp on her tongue. "The Angel of Death, Nebula. Myth claims she is compassionate, soft spoken; but she isn't. She is terrible and merciless; so dangerous, I will confess to you, my sister, that I lied to our father. I never told him what was in that room."

I rolled my eyes, recognizing superfluous tale telling and regretting I'd addressed her. "As if your pretend notion could challenge Thanos..."

"No." Gamora took another bite, juice falling ignored down her chin. "No one can challenge Thanos."

Turning to my side, hands settled under my skull, I watched the sibling I hated least. "If I told father of your deceit he would kill you."

She smiled again, wicked, knowing, as she took that last bite of fruit. "Perhaps I'm lying."

* * *

><p><strong>One Thousand Years Prior<strong>

**-Year 1012-**

**Regith**

**The Acolyte**

Pouring rain thickened the air. Outside my temple walls an electric summer storm raged, the sound of the downpour one I usually took pleasure in. Yet in my mutilated memory, in the timeline I belonged to, it should have been winter on Regith.

"He will not wait, mistress," my attendant softly pressed.

Tracing my finger over my forehead I continued to feel gore seeping out of a wound that did not exist.

There were greater issues than an unwelcome Kree haunting my temple.

I had no idea how I had arrived home and the more I tried to piece random images together, the quicker they fled me.

Ronan paced loudly outside my chamber, his footfalls a metronome to which I paced my breaths. The noise spoke of the man, each step measured to show persistence: acute, intentional… brutal.

I heard the scrape of his boot as he turned again, and motioned to the attendant to inform him I would see to him shortly. As I stood from my bed I felt the tightness of healed scars across the skin of my back and ignored it, far too distracted from what I found staring from my looking glass.

My hair held the intricate knots twisted to crown across my skull, overdone to such a degree it would take hours to unravel. That memory I still possessed: the Collector had crafted the coronet and all the heavy hanging ropes down my back. He'd dressed me in the robes I wore. But what my eyes could not look away from was the waning black line painted down my lower lip and chin.

That mark... that elongated triangle... was his. The Collector's tattoo my referral on Asgard.

Asgard is why I stank of flowers.

Shrill pain lanced my skull; I saw the excited eyes of a man dressed in green burrow an axe into my skull. With all I could muster I snapped mental claws into the image, still feeling phantom blood drip down my face.

In a room full of firelight I had argued with the Asgardian queen and her second son because of a travesty trapped in a book I could almost feel still clutched in my hand. Grabbing a stick of kohl I slid it over my mirror, drawing fragmented symbols the Asgardians had stolen right from my memory; symbols that were still draining from the invisible wound in my psyche. A curved swirl, three dashes and I thought I might be sick, my hand shaking, unsure what I frantically painted atop my reflection.

It didn't make sense the order of the marks, their edges unfinished and unrefined. Not one of those symbols was used in modern sorcery, each figure as stunted as I felt in that moment.

The cosmetic slipped from my fingers and over the sound of blood rushing in my ears I heard footsteps approach nearer in warning my time was running out. Had Ronan not arrived, had my attendant not awoken me, I would have lost what had been done and horrible magic would not be smeared on my mirror.

The rift in my thoughts sealed, panic diminished, and I stood there staring, having no idea what I was looking at or why I had written, _Betrayed by the Collector, Do not trust the Asgardians_ under a mess of magical formulations.

"Mistress."

Blinking, I turned toward the curtain that separated my cell from the antechamber to find novice Skeen watching me. "Yes?"

"Ronan awaits you. His soldiers, they threaten to breach if you do not show yourself."

One thing at a time.

I reached for the pitcher and basin, pouring well water into the vessel for my use. Attacking the mark on my mouth I found I could not wash it off, the stain far too deep no matter the vigor I used to scrub. Through my disoriented and somewhat frantic ablutions, I stared at the warning slashed so quickly on the glass before me.

_Betrayed by the Collector_ yet his mark was on my mouth and my recollections of him nothing more than bland conversation, normalcy, as I waited on Knowhere for my axe. Anything further and my thoughts stuttered over a pulped mash of... nothing.

_Do not trust the Asgardians_ and I stank of their world. Greatly tempted to rip out of the robes that reeked of treachery and foreign sorcery, I raised my hood instead. There was no time for childish tantrums or indulging my sense of outrage. A man had come to see me, one who was very fresh in my memory, and he had to be dealt with.

Before I swept from my cell my face was shielded with the mask of my order, a metallic skull concealing the mark on my mouth; my eyes, the fatigue and remaining disorientation, the only thing on display. The torch flames I passed all shrunk no matter the indifference I pulled around me so I might serve.

I walked toward the rhythm of pacing to face Ronan the Accuser, unsure of his part in this, or why he felt entitled to invade my home. Just beyond the cloisters' dormitories I found him, the man looking pointedly over his shoulder at the sound of my entrance.

I spoke to the novice in my shadow, "Leave us. We are to be undisturbed." My eyes never left him, nor did they follow my obedient attendant when she fell back into the dark at my order.

Alone, proud amidst ancient carvings, tributes to Death loved and greatly revered by all Acolytes, we faced off with only the sounds of a raging storm to fill the silence. It was my place to speak first but I was too busy working my jaw at the sight of my labris hanging from his belt.

_Betrayed by the Collector. Do not trust the Asgardian_. What of Ronan? His name had not been scratched on my mirror.

I drew breath, the feel of that man's cane fresh, and remembered myself, "Greetings, Grand Accuser." My hand lifted toward surrounding unlit braziers. Each ignited, illuminating the dark room so more of the mural might be visible. "Have you come to view our halls?"

Ronan shifted, facing me fully as if the beauty of the room or the flashing grandeur of the storm beyond the archways were beneath him. "I have not."

I gestured toward the stone benches at the center of the chamber, ignoring the glowering warrior to dash a generous pinch of incense over the nearest flame in an attempt to deaden the cloying sweet smell wafting from my clothing and sullying the air. Mirroring my movements Ronan sat, back ramrod straight, and watched me as if I were the guest and he the master.

"This room was carved into the mountain before my people came to be, the depictions sculpted by ancients long dead and forgotten." My eyes ran over the story etched into stone. "It as a rare honor to be permitted so deep into our sanctum, Ronan."

Violet eyes hardened at the unspoken reprimand. "I care not for your murals or Regith protocol. I am not one to be kept waiting, Azrael."

"Most visitors do not arrive in the night with soldiers and demand I be woken." Breathing deeply of the smoke wafting from the brazier, I let the sanctity of the room comfort what was troubled in my breast. "So tell me, how may I honor you?"

The weight of his glower, the sneer on his lips, it was the same expression he'd worn when I was told I was to be caned. "Hala has fully circled the sun," a displeased rumble clarified, as if his home world's cycle should have a deeper meaning to me.

It did. I had lost an entire Kree year.

The white of my eyes moved from his indomitable expression to the beauty of my weapon, so small in relation to the large male.

I had brought down giants with that axe; culled masses.

Greatly did I desire to run my fingers over the carved patterns decorating the matching blades. Watching the firelight play off the dim metal Ronan lifted it, turning it back and forth in display, mesmerizing me easily.

"Three times marauders have tried to take this axe from my possession, Azrael. First," he stood, his too purple eyes flashing indignation, "by a petty lowborn thief. Secondly, by a paltry team of Ravagers. And third, and this earned my righteous fury…" He stood taller, anger flowing off his armored body to contaminate my air. "The third attempt was made by one of my own subordinates."

Heavy steps echoed off the flagstones, the Grand Accuser sneering as he came to stand before me. Holding the axe as if squeezing the neck of an enemy he said, "This labris retains no magic, is crafted from inferior metals… I fail to see why so paltry a weapon warrants so high a reward."

I forced myself to look from the axe and meet his eyes. "I have placed no bounty on the labris you stole from me. Your issue is with another."

Ronan scoffed as if the idea were absurd. "Your weapon is worthless." The armored giant held it out to me, vertical, the gesture odd.

That earned the softest of smiles. Slowly, I reached forward, my fingers enclosing about the familiar feel of the grip. "I have a sentimental attachment to it."

Magic gathered low in my belly at the feel of metal made warm by the hold of the Kree who had yet to release it to my care. The fires in the room flickered, grew brighter; "I thank you for returning this to me."

The man's lips curled, as if my first true politeness were nothing less than utter impudence. Lids narrowed, he growled, "Call me thief again and you will answer for it."

"As you have returned it, I could not call you such." But he had not returned it. He still held it, as did I.

Our stare extended, my eyes white and vacuous, his smoldering, made brighter by so much black tar smeared around them. I could hear his teeth gnashing, see the tick working his jaw. Large male fingers flared and skimmed lower, closing over one of my hands before pushing up the sleeve of my robe. Where he'd last seen me horribly burned, were I should have been scarred, deformed, there was nothing but clear ashen flesh.

Ronan eyed it with displeasure, a sharp tug removing my grip from the axe so he might lift the offensive limb closer for inspection. I knew what he was measuring. The Grand Accuser desired to know if I had removed the marks he'd lain into my flesh … offended at the very idea.

"Very few touch me, Ronan. It is considered a bad omen."

Underscoring primitive superstition only drew a simper on his half-painted mouth. My arm was yanked, my body careening upward off the bench. With his hammer at my back, the pole barring movement, hard armor dug into the softer contours beneath my robes. The surrounding brazier flames jumped higher, blazing madly the second Ronan released my hand and palmed the silver skull hiding my face.

He was ungentle in its removal, flinging my mask to skid across the floor as he loomed nearer, his hand tugging down the hood that shaded my eyes and covered the complexity of my hair.

Death's cold skeletal fingers, that was the touch I relished; not the overlarge heat of hand testing my jaw, or a thumb pressing the ridge of my cheekbone.

Absolute self-satisfaction practically purred from his chest, "If you have removed my marks, then by right, I will replace them, Azrael of Regith."

Sweltering from the roaring flames licking at the ceiling, sweat beaded my brow. Yet I remained still under the watch of those precious walls unsure if he recognized the uncontrolled effect his over-nearness had on the atmosphere.

With each consecutive breath I worked to dim the fires.

The pad of a large blue thumb came to my lower lip, tugging it down in the line of the cosmetic mark another had left on my body. "What is the meaning of this?"

I broke from the rage in Ronan's gaze and moved my attention into the thickly caked matter of his paint. I thought of the mirror and the warning... of symbols I could hardly understand. "It is a reminder of my displeasure with a being far more powerful than I."

Ronan purred, "Have you removed my lashes?"

Twisting his meaning, I confirmed, "I proudly bear the marks of my triumph over Vitg'jui, of my effortless outmaneuvering of Korath the Pursuer, and of my honor for adhering to your laws. I have even been told they are beautiful."

"There are few females who would dare speak to me in such a haughty tone."

Placid, I reminded him of his previous accusation, "I am not a Kree."

His thumb traced the mark on my lip again, drawing my brows down with it as he demanded, "Why did you not return for your weapon?"

Voice impassive as ever, I grasped his intention and responded, "You need not touch me to prevent teleportation, Ronan. I am weakened at present and you have my gratitude for returning my labris."

Displeased with the quality of his eyes I watched his mouth form the words, "You would admit weakness to me?"

A deep breath and the fires calmed. "I have no reason to conceal it. You are not in opposition of Death and I have already bowed to your judgment and earned acquittal. We are neutral, our business concluded."

"You did not bring me the three heads I demanded." The words had been growled, spoken so lowly I was unsure of each syllable but certain that he was... taunting me.

"I saved your people from a potential nightmare. Your Supreme Intelligence granted me a ship. I owe you nothing."

"I know what brought you to Hala. The deviant's family was questioned, punished, and executed for concealing Vitg'jui's obsession and earliest flight logs in an attempt to eradicate the shame he brought on their house. I know where he went, followed the path myself." He leaned even closer, hovering near enough I could taste black spice on his breath. "I know everything."

Stiffening, tightening my grip on the labris dangling at my side, I raised my free hand and pressed it to his chest, my limb already dripping with tendrils of threatening magic. "Seek it yourself and I will see you eradicated, Accuser. I would destroy you!"

Ronan sneered, "I have brought you an offering."

I was shoved back to my seat, a tiny squirming bag dumped on my lap. What it was I knew without drawing the strings, horrified it had been in my presence all that while and gone unnoticed.

For a moment all I knew was confusion staring at the writhing fabric.

Scooping it up, I withdrew two pieces of the Serpent Crown, the twisting snakes entwining in an attempt to lock together. They danced in my hand, they sang to me.

"They promise me anything I desire," I whispered.

His hand lifted one of the heavy twisted ropes of my white hair, running the knots between forefinger and thumb as he admitted, "They promised me more."

"Had you not seen the price the demon would exact," I looked up to the man standing tall over me, "would you have accepted them?"

The amount of times I had offended Ronan previously were nothing to the look of pure rage that twisted his face in that moment.

I amended, "I have never met a being who came across the corruption and spurned its temptation."

His grip on my hair tightened. "Beg my pardon."

I had no interest in temper, only facts, "Answer me."

"You _dare_ question my honor?"

I parted the figurines, held two priceless, horrible things in my grasp as they hissed and sank in their fangs. The sight of my blood, the small little puncture wounds, did not move me. "And never, _never_, have I seen two combined. I am communicating my admiration, Ronan. I do not speak like the Kree."

Unwilling to let the travesty exist further, I brushed past the stiff Grand Accuser and threw the serpents into the nearest brazier. My chant, the power it exacted even in that place, extinguished all other flames, blanketing us in dark uncut by the remaining white hot point of corrupted light.

Forming long dead languages, inky darkness slithered from me to fuel the destruction. One of the broken images slathered on my mirror jumped in my mind as I chanted, thrusting forward and clinging to consciousness... distracting me. My tongue tripped, the ground jolted, and blood ran down my nose. White flames burst, cracked, and something, a scream torn from another plane, came through the embers.

The air settled as I stood, almost struck, and stared at the ashes of the ruined fragments, unsure how I had shattered them so quickly. "Where did you find these?"

His cruel voice, deep as the blackest tar, sucked my attention from the coals as the Kree detailed the last year of his life. Where I had lost time, Ronan had served his people in removing a potential threat before it tempted any others who may have heard of Vitg'jui's mission, and in doing so served _my_ master.

It shamed me.

Tasting the blood on my lips, I raised a sleeve to wipe the small stream away. Ronan took my wrist, preventing me.

Since his arrival I had challenged the Grand Accuser; even so, he had given me a great gift. If he wished to watch my face bleed I would not deny him. "I thank you. Now," the air from my lungs came unsteady, "what is your price, Accuser?"

Ronan roared and yanked me by the stuff of my robes, so enraged I was tempted to smirk at the tantrum. A pillar pressed to my back, a seething Kree before me, I did.

He froze, his eyes darting over my face as his fist twisted further in the black fabric it clung to.

"Mistress," a cleric, called from the archway, his lifeless eyes ignoring that a warrior threatened the Acolyte of the temple. "There is a courier to see you. He claims it is urgent."

"Send him off!" The barked growl from the Kree betrayed his impatience at the interruption, animosity only heightening when a male Xandarian burst uninvited into our presence.

"Acolyte Azrael," The Xandarian messenger gave a parody of the Collector flamboyant bow, eyes glittering to find me gripped indelicately by an enemy race in the dark. "I have traveled far to bring you a gift from my master." An opaque vial he extended before him. "A rare vintage, I was told... made from the first pressing."

"A million years old…" I finished the taunt, my voice razor blades.

Inky tendrils of my power seeped from the floor to brush the ancient vial. Adver Silac.

Frowning deeply I used my magic to lift it, my hands swirling once in the air and drawing the vial into a subspace recess. In a voice as soft as a feather I snatched at shattered fragments of a conversation with the Collector, "And your master has told you he wishes to know the exact expression on my face when you offer it?"

The man only smiled, still bowing, utterly certain I wouldn't dare touch him. "Indeed. You know him well, my lady."

"I do have an expression for Tivan." I slithered closer, my calm ocean-like, smooth on the surface but churning wild beneath. In the dark, I took up my labris and held it properly by the throat. The moment I raised it over my head it seemed to register the fate the Collector's fool had earned, not only for his insolence, but for my anger toward the one who'd sent him. With precision, the edge of my labris wedged deep into the courier's skull, buried in the exact position where mine still ached.

The body fell back and I took in the sprawl, formulating how much further I could use the situation. A year of my life stolen and lost to me... used in a way I could not recollect. With the warning on my mirror I knew whatever had been done was terrible and those responsible must be held accountable. The spell began, twisting around the corpse and slithering inside its mouth to fill it up, simple words to tempt the pretty pink Krylorian who would be stuck disposing of the gift I would send to Taneleer.

Exhausted by the final drain of my reservoir, I turned my attention to the unflinching cleric. "Go immediately to Knowhere. Drop this corpse at the Collector's feet." I looked to where my labris projected from the fool's head. "Do not remove the axe. Do not speak to Tivan. Do not eat or drink anything he might offer. A Kree ship docked in my name waits there." Slowly angling my head to peer at the man standing behind me I ordered, "Return it to them."

"Yes, Mistress." The cleric lifted the body quietly and followed my commands.

With the cleric gone the room went quiet as a tomb. I stared at Ronan relieved the fires were gone so he might not see how I seethed.

He seemed amused. "What was in that flask?"

I spoke the truth, "A lost Kree year of my life."

"You are shaking."

"I have expended a great deal of magic." ... and had no more time to waste on Ronan. There was much to think upon, ablutions to be made. I went straight to the Kree as I would any visitor and raised my fingers in benediction. On his forehead I quickly traced the shape of a circle, muttering words more ancient than either of our races. The same attention formed over his heart.

He caught my hand. "I will not be dismissed with your superstitions and pilgrims' ritual."

In my thoughts he already had been and I am certain my eyes expressed the sentiment. "It would be the wisest course for you. The Collector is the one who placed the bounty on my labris." I pointed to my lip. "Who marked me as you did."

A downward curve came to the corners of his mouth. "He is your enemy?"

"My benefactor..." That alone should have sent the Kree running yet he foolishly drew nearer.

Before I could blink Ronan's mouth closed over my bottom lip, sucking it hard between his teeth. The abrasion of his tongue snaked lower, following the line of the tattoo, grating over my skin. I must have tasted of blood, but he tasted of the oil used to scent a corpse and stain teeth black.

My people made sweets from it.

He bit down hard, and I released the breath trapped in my chest; my lashes lowered as my thoughts fled the unfamiliar visceral attention to obsess over the strange symbols written on my mirror.

_Kinetic._

The first symbol scratched on the looking glass stood for Kinetic...

Ronan shoved his tongue in my mouth and thoughts of magic scattered.

* * *

><p><strong>A big shout out to all who reviewed the last chapter. Thank you!<strong>


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

**Present Day:**

**- Year 2014-**

**Nebula**

"Explain to me, Nebula, how it is that _you_ unearthed the location of the Orb yet Korath was sent to retrieve it... where he failed."

While Ronan was secluded in his secret chamber, unaware Korath had returned empty handed, I stood before a projection of my father. Emboldened by bitterness that I was somehow to blame, I explained, "There is an ancient room on this ship I cannot enter. Even now Ronan is inside, distracted within. No one may disturb him when he enters with his basin of blood. When I found news of the orb's location I approached too close so I might inform him. Ronan has shunned me since, offering my due reward to Korath."

Never in my life had I seen Thanos so much as tick a muscle in reaction beyond boredom or disdain at my voice, but for a millisecond, he tensed. The world bent and after one beat of my cybernetic heart I found myself in Sanctuary standing before the throne.

The Other skittered beside me, looking to Thanos as I did. I smelled opportunity and would sink my teeth into the problem, bite down hard, and shake my head like a crazed beast. "Distraction lies beyond that door, Father."

"Not distraction. Purpose."

Thanos knew more than I, and I hungered for wisdom. "What is the Dark Aster? Why does the flagship of the Kree bear that name?"

The curve of a half smirk; never... never... had Thanos made the expression for me. That was the expression for Gamora's exploits and clever supplication. I raised my chin, patient to be told my anxieties were baseless.

The great hands resting on the arms of the throne came together, the Mad Titan deep in thought. "The chosen flower laid on graves of the Kree fallen at the battle of Neh. Ronan gave her the title when her forces fell to him that day. The room no soul may approach is her prison."

"A Xandarian is kept in that room?" The stomach churning memory of Ronan covered in the fluids of sex came forth as I growled, "A lover?"

"No."

I had asked two questions, which had Thanos answered? I could see the cruel lesson to exercise my tongue with more wisdom. His knowledge, the lack of confirmation chaffed. My father never shared information with me unless there was an underscoring torment. He wanted to watch me squirm.

I refused to be his entertainment. Knowing better than to show further opinion before the one who'd ruined me, I blandly confirmed my understanding, "The flower in question is poisonous and addictive."

Thanos shook his head one single time back and forth. "That depends entirely on the species who imbibes its milk."

Not a word of this made sense and I could see the layers involved binding Thanos, the Other, Ronan, myself... everyone grasping the thread I could not catch. Thanos was waiting for me to speak, I did so without inflection. "Ronan's behavior is sanctioned and I am to ignore his pet."

The Other chimed in, his voice supplicating as if Thanos deserved praise regarding the subject, "Her name is Azrael, and she is your sister... in essence, resting in Ronan's care _for now_."

I had no sibling by that name and had she ever been one of Thanos's chosen, her name had since been struck from the rocks of our home. A _resting_ prisoner in a cell of ancient carved stone my fist could crack in one punch. She was held by sorcery, the blood had to be a rejoinder of the spell. "This Azrael is dangerous and would move against your plans. You have trusted Ronan with her keeping."

Melodic in his warning, Thanos claimed, "Gamora did warn you."

My head fell, the shape of my boots in the asteroid's sand all I could bare as the weight of my blunder and the shame I had been summoned to Sanctuary to face surfaced. Thanos had known my heart, and this was only the beginning of my punishment.

My _father_ chided, "Do not disappoint me again with petty complaints or finger pointing."

There was to be no pain? I glanced up under my brow only to see the great throne turn so Thanos might look back to the stars. I'd been dismissed. A blink, and when my eyes opened I was aboard the Dark Aster, alone.

* * *

><p><strong>One Thousand Years Prior<strong>

**-Year 1012-**

**The Acolyte**

Staggering like a simpleton I found the pillar at my back offered more support than my legs could manage. The Grand Accuser retreated, his armored shoulders sucked into deeper shadow until the outline of his form left my sight. I was certain had any novice or cleric seen me I would have looked like an utter fool with my jaw gaping and my chest rising and falling like that of a winded sprinter.

The roof of my mouth held a line of sensation, a strange sort of tingle where a vigorous tongue had left one last flick before the man abruptly broke away. He'd stared down at the sheen smeared on my face; he'd glared at my parted lips.

Struck, I had been unable to manage words, let alone coherent thought.

Ronan had claimed something precious to displace me, a reward for his labor no sane man would have attempted. And he'd pressed the point when his tongue took its time, licking the blood from my face, delving between my lips again and again until I'd squeaked into his mouth.

In a power play the Kree had set the scales in his favor. Ronan must have known such a thing was entirely out of my scope, absolutely uncharted territory I could hardly process. Then he'd wordlessly left before I could recover or react.

He'd been so warm, heat sinking through the armor that crushed me to the pillar. As warm as he'd been rough; for there had to be bruises where he'd gripped my hip, my shoulder.

I could taste him.

I swallowed.

Disoriented, I forced my feet to function; I stepped away from the precious carved antechamber to reenter the cloister, to find my curtained door and seek haven inside.

Already a bath waited, the young woman who tended my rooms walking forward to divest me of clothing.

As my temple had no modern amenities rooms were lit by fire, water carried in from springs; every task done by patient hands willing to embrace stoicism in respect of hallowed ground. Staring at the steaming basin I could not comprehend how she had carried all thirty buckets it would have taken to fill it in the short time I had met with the Kree.

I had lost time _again_, those ribbons of vapor taunting me to acknowledge I had been under the onslaught of Ronan's mouth far longer than I realized.

The last bit of fabric fell, my attendant gasped, her hand running along my spine, "The modification is beautiful, Mistress."

I snapped out of the odd sensation I still felt tracing over my lips when more attention followed the line of scars, drawing me to look over my shoulder and see what was so fascinating.

I froze.

Even with writing marring my mirror I could see what she admired so openly. Ronan's cane marks had been placed with exacting precision, creating a pattern that was neither one of ugliness nor mutilation. An intriguing symmetry lay in the scars, some lighter, some darker where I recalled the weapon falling repeatedly upon the same wound to add depth to the design. The pattern followed the natural curve of my body in such a way that I knew why the Collector had found them to be _pretty_. One look and Tivan had garnered information of a greater depth to the ordeal I'd failed to process in my indifference. Seeing them now, still tasting the spice of the man who'd inflicted them, I would rather have gained horrific ugliness than recognize his deeper understanding of how best to punish me.

Again I felt the burn of the only kiss I had ever known, the force of Ronan's tongue sliding over the Collector's mark, changing the way I would forever view it.

My attendant took my fingers. "Come into the bath, Mistress."

Water sloshed as I obeyed, the bath's heat less than the burn of my blushed reticence to find my body had responded naturally to stimulus and was sensitive to touch; that even after one glance I too found the marks attractive; that I was mortified with both these small revelations.

I sunk deeper into the water while my attendant began to fold my discarded robes.

"Burn them."

"At once, Mistress."

She did so before me. The hearth ate at the black cloth, ruining the perfume of apple blossoms. As they charred the novice bathed and soothed my body so thoroughly I began to settle. Blood still crusted my nostril and she moved once she saw my head loll back to clean it, her towel dragging over my swollen lips in the process.

"Mistress," Removing my fingertips from where they had wandered between my legs my eyes opened to see her offer, "If you are in need of physical release there is a willing male cleric I use on occasion; he is well-versed. If you would prefer a female's attention I would be honored to attend you."

Easing from the water I responded, "You are very generous but I require no such attention."

Physical pleasure was not against my order, by any means. But I had always felt it a distraction and never found interest in the pursuit. Furthermore, my deeper feelings drew a sense of disgust in followers who reproduced, who reared families. Our duty was to enforce death not create new life.

It seemed an affront to my Master.

When the novice was gone I lay in my bed, listened to the rain, and worried. Never in my life had I known such a displaced sensation. Something was terribly wrong, something hidden in the symbols on my mirror that I absolutely could not ignore. I'd been violated by powers out of my control, disrespected by Taneleer, despoiled somehow by Asgard, and made a further failure by Ronan's success in gaining the final fragments of the Serpent Crown that were my duty to collect and obliterate.

My mission was over and a new task weighed heavy on my shoulders.

As did guilt.

I needed help; I needed guidance. Mostly I needed reassurance, but the one I knew I must go to would never offer such a thing.

* * *

><p>My feet were bare, a state I preferred when walking the catacombs carved deep below the mountain where my temple sat small and constant overlooking the capitol city of the Regi. Around me the dead were embraced by massive root system of the jungles above, the decaying corpses nurturing the planet in the balanced cycle I upheld.<p>

For five days I'd fasted in the dark, I'd washed in springs both scalding and cold, and chewed the gibgib root until I was saturated with the drug. In the process of purification, I'd fixated on the symbols left upon the mirror, seeking their meaning so I might decipher the warning I had scratched against the glass.

I could make no sense of them, so when I was weak enough I sought my family's tomb. The bones most freshly laid I hesitated to disturb, the loosening jaw making the skull seem to smile as it sagged. Yet he, like me, had rarely smiled in life.

"Father?"

_"You always had a habit of assuming I could not spare the time."_

I sat by the remains, my hand resting over the crumbling skeletal fingers and still sharp talons that tipped them. "Disturbing your rest is a sacrilege."

_"It is my decision whether or not visiting with my daughter constitutes as a disturbance. So tell me what drew you all the way here and I will be the judge."_

It took a great deal of consecration to speak with the dead; the living had to suffer and weaken their life force to even attempt it. It was always trancelike, never satisfying in the way communion with the living could be. Because I was not dead and my father was not alive; all we could do was stand at the border of the underworld and seemingly yell over the chasm.

There was little my father could know of my life, his view excruciatingly limited, so I sought to be concise, "I have lost a year of memory at the hands of the Collector and Asgardians, the only clue I hold are fragmented arcane symbols and a message of warning in my own hand. Furthermore, the labris is no longer in my possession."

A phantom hand I could not see settled on my shoulder before the distant ghostly echo chided, _"If you've come to be absolved you'll be disappointed."_

"I came for counsel, nothing more."

_"Counsel your mother could not provide? What of your sister?"_

"Mother is well, she thrives. Ade'lie continues to study sorcery at a great waste of her time and my patience, but is happy in the pursuit. Neither is in a position to understand the issue at hand as you could and I will not trouble them with such."

My father sensed a hidden reluctance in my thoughts and responded, _"Do not belittle your mother's capacity or try to spare her out of kindness. She is your mother; she has a duty... And your sister, you continue to hide your skill from her. You know my feelings on indulging vanity."_

It was an old argument. "I have no time for the triviality of teaching sorcery to those with no aptitude."

It seemed the skull turned to face me; in the long rotted eyes sockets I could imagine the harsh glare of my father's disapproval. _"I know you Azrael. Coddling Ade'lie as you do; even trying to deform your inaction as if it were egoistic and cold is a lie. You hate to see her disappointed and should be harder. What good do you do her allowing your sister to flit about? Her grasp of fundamentals will never change the fact she lacks your greater skill and will never improve. You have a duty to guide her to a better course, do you not?"_

"Did you not listen, old man? I have greater problems than my sister's inability to accept her purpose lies elsewhere."

_"You are being selfish in your gentleness and you limit her use to you by not fostering her in a practical direction."_

"I am an Acolyte! The time I spare my family is merely a courtesy!"

A felt the slap sting harder than any he had given me in life. Resisting the urge to reach up and touch my check I lowered my head in acceptance of the correction at my rudeness. In his living years we'd had difficulty in bending toward one another; his austerity had pushed me hard to remain obedient and made things difficult at times between us. Death had changed nothing in his harshness or demands, and now he wished me to adopt that role over my sister. I would not.

The ghost's hiss of, _"Soooo stubborn,"_ showed I was far from forgiven. The dead, they did know how to rage.

"I have no weapon, Father. I have lost a year and am at odds with the Collector and Asgard for reasons I cannot remember. The help I seek is not for Ade'lie, it is for myself."

The man was short, _"The Regi may be neutral but basic principles of war do not change. The enemy of your enemy is your friend."_

I nodded; the thought had already occurred to me but that path I dared not tread. "That is true, but I cannot go to Thanos."

_"Why not, child?"_

Why indeed? "I feel... it would be wrong to show him these symbols. I sense they hold great power and he seeks too much for himself. Unless Death were to command it, I must avoid Sanctuary."

A lengthy pause thickened between us as the dead one deliberated, _"If you will not act in rejoinder against those you suspect brought disgrace then my suggestion is this. Do nothing at all. Continue to serve, and die quickly so another more worthy can take your position."_

Smoothing my hand over the rough skull I nodded, "Perhaps you are right. It is foolish to flail around in the dark."

_"As for a weapon, my favorite daughter, you should not have lost my axe in the first place. Now you must suffer the consequences."_

"I did not part with it frivolously. The axe was a message, the greatest one I could send to sever ties with the Collector. The corpse it is buried in also carries another significance, the beginnings of my retaliation - a mouthful of whispers for a slave who longs to escape him. I will tempt his Carina to spy for me in exchange for her freedom. After the brusqueness of relinquishing the axe he would not expect such an underhanded exploit. Not... from me."

The darkness of his chuckle bounding off earthen walls brought a smear of color to my face. _"You were always so sly thinking your aggression would be mistaken for callousness when it was really done out of pain. You feel too strongly and allowed Tivan to disappoint you when you should have been cold in regard to anything the ancient one did. Atone for this."_

"How?"

I could feel his disgust I'd even asked, confirmed when he changed the subject, _"Your life will never be like that of your sister's and I wonder deeply if it is her envy you avoid or your envy of her."_

He was trying to ruffle me, had always been determined to make me ungentle so I might not mirror my mother. "I do not envy her the ease of normality and you insult my devotion to my Master implying differently. You insult it greatly because the true envy is yours that I have always loved Death more!"

_"It amuses me to see you half-starved, dehydrated, and slave to the gibgib's influence where you cannot hide behind the expressionlessness you cling to. How you must hate to be put in such a state just so you might call for your daddy... Because we both know you have never called for Death when you felt fraught."_

"He wouldn't come..." I caught myself and stuttered, "It is not my place to call on him. I am a servant."

_"And you claim to love him more than me."_

"I was foolish to call you anticipating more than castigation and lectures. You have given me no help."

_"I died for you."_

Swallowing, I let out a painstakingly careful breath and held my tongue.

_"Azrael, you either step forward or you step backward. You cannot dance atop the line. Commit yourself. Disappoint your sister's ambition and redirect her so she might thrive as your mother does. Make full use of your hidden retaliation against a being that betrayed an Acolyte's trust. Set aside your misgivings and stand before Death's would-be lover. The Mad Titan has weapons beyond your understanding and would never deny you."_

We were finally getting somewhere. "There is wisdom in the cruelty you would have me wield against Ade'lie. And truth that I have means to take retribution by inconveniencing the Collector. But then what? My sister would hate me. And either Taneleer would destroy me or Thanos would suck me into his schemes should I seek shelter on Sanctuary. Both options disrupt my purpose and involve me in politics outside my interest."

_"Sweet Azrael, your sister already hates you."_

He had had enough of my arguments and faded away, leaving me disheartened as only a father could.

* * *

><p>"Look who chose to grace me with her presence after five seasons with no word," my sister teased, her beauty shining and only made more pleasurable to look upon when she smiled. "Welcome home."<p>

Before me sat a jewel amongst my kind, her azure hair a prized rarity so much more brilliant than my common white. Ade'lie glowed, made the room brighter, and even after all these years retained a knack for coaxing a rare soft look from me.

Where I was bland, Ade'lie was brilliant; a diamond beside a lump of coal.

"I have been speaking with our father." I took a seat beside her, finding her in a state of good health and manicured prettily.

She gave a tug to one of my ratted locks, "Must have been bad for you to leave that rock and enter the city."

No, it was not the city I avoided. It was the academy where Ade'lie lurked in lecture after lecture on acutely boring magic theory she could quote for hours yet unerringly miscalculate in concept. "I came to see you once I broke my fast."

"But didn't bathe." She winked, her golden-eyed glimmer briefly hidden behind a lid painted crimson. "You still smell of the grave."

"Such things will be attended to later."

Ade'lie did not offer me a seat where the dried muck on my robes might mare the white fabric of her chaise. "Then let us talk, but I have little time. I am giving a presentation in an hour."

"The topic?"

"The coil connection between healing energies and carbon."

Utter nonsense.

"My theory will change the way the world approaches living transmutation." She began to rail off trivialities, her baseless speculation, advancements and accolades she anticipated from her teachers. Hearing her speak on sorcery was a subject I disliked, yet could not avoid without sparking bitterness. I did my best to deflect the obvious flaws in her reasoning, unwilling to disappoint my little sister. I played dumb, behaving exactly as our father accused me was worst for her.

As if she could pick up on my melancholy she smiled again. "You know he's a prick, right? Whatever dad said to you, he isn't all-knowing or even nice. You should stop thinking of him as if he were."

I nodded, mute, unable to order her home and far away from the frivolous waste of her life. So I did something stupid and tried to direct her subtly instead, "From your admirers, have you chosen a male to reproduce with?"

Ade'lie's irritation, the switch into sharpness, I could feel it swell like the bite of a spider. "No. Children would take time from my studies."

"You are so beautiful, tadpole. The Regi would be at a loss should you not share your genes."

"Do you really think a niece or nephew would decrease your loneliness, Acolyte?"

When she called me by my title I knew I had pushed too far. I could almost feel our father stir in his grave, growling. The truth was I had not pushed far enough. I looked at a face so stunning any male of our kind would gladly offer to father children with her, and saw my greatest weakness in my inability to curb her. "Do not speak to me as if I have not loved you from the first moment you drew breath. I have been too soft, father would say. Too lenient. Dare me to repeat what was discussed in the catacombs."

"You cannot make me carry a child!"

The cold came over me, the calm voice that she had never shook and never would. Only one could draw my anger and he was dead. "There was no talk of your breeding. I merely mentioned it out of conversation and an interest in your life. The line can die with you for all I care."

Ade'lie shrieked, "How can you say that!"

I could salvage this. "I have come here because I have need of your expertise in research. Compile for me a catalogue of the most ancient symbols used in sorcery. Dig for unknowns, broken text, forgotten arcane marks."

No matter her small negation it was impossible to miss the bloom in her expression. "What of my classes?"

"Would you rather I give an assignment of this magnitude to one of the elders?"

"...yes."

I felt a knife twist in my heart. "Then I have no more time to spare in talk of this matter with you. Adept Nagala will serve in your place."

My sister rose, shaking her head as she clutched at my arm. "You cannot order the headmaster to redirect his time. And, Azrael, you cannot go before him looking as you do, filthy and stinking of rot, either. What would he think of me?"

My sigh was long and weary. Fixing on her a look of disappointment I said, "This is no trivial assignment and he will gladly accept it should I appear to him naked and covered in excrement."

In her quickness to intercede so I might not go to the headmaster, Ade'lie sputtered, "No... no, no. I'll do it in my free time."

Straightening my shoulders, filthy robes and all, I broke down her failure to me, "_Free time_? The offer has been rescinded and never again will I assume your position of support when I need it. Continue your studies, remain barren; I wash my hands of it."

One more steady look and I stepped away, teleporting in a black sweeping mist to go straight to the highest ranking sorcerer on Regith. He was honored to have me. At one word Nagala began stacking a pile of fragile text on the subject of my interest between making notes on where else he thought he might augment the lexicon I requested. A man old enough to have grandfathered me served unflinchingly in a way my own blood had refused.

"I would have you come with me off-world, and in all likelihood you will die on my mission." It was not an order, and he knew it as such. There would be no shame in refusal.

With a bow Adept Nagala seemed heartened, his body more than strong enough to serve my needs. "I will come with you."

Watching the male I realized I truly had failed Ade'lie. But my father was wrong, she couldn't hate me. The thought she might was unbearable.

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry I fell off the face of the earth for a few weeks there. My move is done and half the unpacking as well. That means more time to write! Hurrah! <strong>

**Have I mentioned how much I love writing this tale, I want to tell you what's in store so badly. Needless to say, hang on to your drawers. Ronan POV coming next chapter. Is there anything you want to see?**

**Please review! :)**


	7. Chapter 6

**I wanted to have this chapter ready for you so we could all celebrate the Guardian of the Galaxy DVD/Blu-ray release. (I know you lucky ducks in the UK got it last month and my envy for you is massive) All teasing aside, I hope you enjoy.**

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><p><strong>Chapter 6<strong>

**Present Day:**

**- Year 2014-**

**Ronan**

The door closed at my back and I was no longer on the flagship of my people, but walking the stones of Eternity where Azrael waited. The golden bowl I carried had been her mother's, dented with time and my occasional neglect, the blood within still warm.

The crushed skull of the Xandarian delegate I had collected the fluid from continued seeping the less useful matter to fill the pit I would meditate in later. For now, this was for her, the liquid offering culled from a fool who had dared to seek political absolution of their lesser races' crimes.

One solitary flame burned unchecked in the cavern; a small lamp wick flickering that would never extinguish. The slight offered light played off the statue, unmoving, unseeing in the center of the circular stones.

A crush of the sponge and I lifted the dripping thing to begin at her neck as I had thousands of times before. "Wake, Azrael," my voice was stiff. "You cannot dream forever in Eternity's domain. Thanos..."

There was reaction to that name, a strategic win so soon - one blink. Closer I moved, splashing her with blood in my urgency to draw her out further. "...Thanos will destroy Xandar in a matter of days."

The edge of my bark recoiled loud from so much encroaching stone. Azrael flinched. I took her to the floor, ran my hand from her throat to her waist, and I spread her legs. At the jut of her hip bones I dung in blunt nails, seeking to draw blood, yanking her closer to where my mouth found sanctuary between her legs.

My tongue, I speared her with it, knowing where to flick to elicit response. This female, she had a love of my mouth, especially if I were to bite atop the ridge just so.

A breath, an arch, and one truly demented moan.

I nipped again, lapped at her thigh so she might move, might angle her pelvis for more of my attention, growling when she did so. Griping hard enough to mark and leave deep bruises I moved where she sought friction and flicked madly at her softening, roused cunt. To draw things out, to pull and manage the burden of her keeping, I pushed her legs wider and sucked puffy flesh between my lips.

There was no resistance.

Already my cock ached; it always did when I entered the temple to see Azrael.

Kneeling between soft thighs I entered roughly, yanking her slender body down my girth. I would not lie and say it was not to my great pleasure to see her manipulated by my hands, to make use of her where she was so tight. I throbbed and pulsed with the first stages of arousal at the feel of her encasing even half of my cock.

She bucked when I began to force the final length her body must work to accommodate... and I froze.

My weight fell full upon her, thumb and fingers gripping her jaw as I demanded, "Speak, Azrael. Make words with this mouth."

Nothing.

"SPEAK!" The roar brought blasted my eardrums and I arched, stuffing my pulsing organ deep as I pressed her belly with my palm so she might feel every last stretching bit of me - so she might move again.

I seeped, a wet sound underlying the noise moving from my chest with rage so it might call to her. There was no way to hold back my broken groan when her ankles hooked at my back; she desired more. The angle opened her deeper where I could scrape the bulbous tip of my cock over the tight internal pleasure point. It twitched, fluttered, and that small final barrier offered to bloom with at each forceful jab of my organ.

Already the weight of my sack tightened and I worked my teeth, biting down hard to hold on. "You would make _the kiss_?"

She was; that waving internal swell had already begun, expanding the mouth of her womb to cover and encase the end of my shaft, gripping tight and pulling me deeper, like a little mouth to suckle me. To show approval I fisted her hair at the root, clutching to expose her throat and suck. I bit her when her organ wrapped and swelled, preventing further thrusts as they contracted to the point I ached to spill. Indeed I had already begun to ejaculate but her _kiss_, that internal sphincter held so tight the fluid was trapped in my cock... waiting to burst against her womb once she was fully open to receive me.

"Xandar will fall, for you, for house Fiyero, our children! I swear it. Finish the kiss!"

God how I needed to spurt yet was forced to have final copulation managed out of my control. It hurt so perfectly I came harder, groaning, ripping at her skin I was so gone. Under my weight she writhed and sang in her passion, waking up from the sleep just enough to look me in the eye and view my grimacing exultation.

She was there, for half a second I had her... and in that brief moment her body loosened its hold, my seed splashed hard against a slamming barrier to seep out, wasted, and I found I had to shove deeper to breach the closing gate the way a far more slender, pointed Regi male sex organ would. I fucked in mercilessly as she watched me, her lips limp and panting as her body writhed in nearing completion.

A held back a roar, mangling the noise in my throat when the kiss failed; she denied me. I took her by the throat. How I longed to bang her head against the flagstones until she found a voice and ended this torment. Instead I squeezed, I denied her air that she pretended to breathe, in such a fury I could not resist screaming right in her face.

Claws flashed when I felt the matter of her neck mush. Azrael had struck me, leaving four lines of torn flesh on my chest to bleed on her bobbing breasts. I set her free, bending down to lick my taste from velvet skin, to let her know I felt her... she came dry heaving with spit laden gags, womb choking around my cock and lips moaning so loud I mashed my pelvis harder to please her.

Mating her was always war of one sort or another.

"All of our sons, our daughters, have died in this war." I snarled, rearing up to begin again. "Complete the kiss and give me another child."

Between sucks of air and hiccupping squeaks she let her voice free, "I have lost my labris."

At last. Slithering my grip around her rocking my hips I hauled her up, her legs about my torso, and began the script as I held her, "You have lost so much more than your labris."

"My mother?"

My tongue flicked out to taste tears, a thing I had not been able to draw from her in centuries. "I broke her neck so she might die without pain. She lies under your temple. Honored."

Tension left her and again I felt her internal pulse and knew my hooks had sank in so deep I could not help but grin meanly when she asked, "My father?"

I brushed her lips with mine. "I crushed his skull with my hammer, the bones fragmented like dry twigs."

Her talons found my flank and buried deep enough I would carry the wound for days. "My sister?"

Rearing up to watch her face, I purred, "Betrayed you." Desire to feel the soft lobe of her ear I took it between my teeth and nipped. When she jumped a low voice ripe with pleasure came from my chest, "For that crime I had her crucified."

All I gained for the final admission was Azrael's long breath of, "Ronan."

A sound came from her throat, the wrong sound, and I put my fingertips between her lips to quiet her crying. I made her look, found understanding in her gaze and lost a fragment of my self-possession, "Do not waste these rare moments mourning lives centuries lost. It is the lives of our offspring you should keen for. BUT YOU CAN'T because you never knew them. Ro'ner, Agaliea, Ro'zel, Seren... slaughtered by the very Xandarians you chose over me! WEEP FOR THEM!"

I felt such hate, such need to spill our enemies' blood at the memory of my broken lineage, at all that had been taken from me... at the woman who still encased my cock where I could tempt her to ride me but fought for every precious word. A thousand years of Kree judgment, one for every year Azrael had lain in her living tomb would fall on Xandar so they might know suffering - horrific suffering.

Azrael faded away further into the abstract whose very bones surrounded her. In Eternity she was separated from Death, with whom I refused to share her. After all, Death had never cared as I had and I had bartered a great deal of Xandarian lives with the Mistress to keep Azrael.

My lips smoothed over an ageless forehead and I whispered her name as I clung. Soon the Dark Aster would wake and accept what was done. Her sentence was almost fully served. As a creature carved of duty she could not question, not when her Mistress had left her to my judgment.

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><p><strong>One Thousand Years Prior<strong>

**-Year 1012-**

**The Acolyte**

Nagala was given less than a day to prepare for departure. I did not know how his final hours with the Regi were spent. It was not my place to intrude on such things. His may have been spent as mine were, sitting quietly with the one I loved most. Under my mother's hands the length of my hair was worked free, untangled with her sharp fingertips and woven over the hours into the pattern of our lineage and the knots of her choosing.

In the jungles of my family's home rain was constant, serving as the only sound aside from our breath and the clicks of her talons. There were no questions, only soft smiles and instant acceptance. The woman did not feel the need to ask why reports of a Kree ship hovered just above our atmosphere, the massive warship visible; a shadow over the Temple of Death. The Regi banked on fact, rumormongering uncommon, but I knew all wondered why I had gone into seclusion upon their arrival.

My mother must have known I'd called on her dead mate in the catacombs.

Still she asked nothing.

When it was done, all my white hair twisted so I could not trip on it, knotted, woven, and held in silver rivets and binding tubes, I looked like myself and felt the comfort my father had denied me.

"I was chastised for allowing Ade'lie to continue at the Academy." I had no idea what had caused me to say such a thing on my way out the door, to ruin all the perfect silence we had shared.

My mother cocked her head, hair as white as mine hanging heavy from her skull. "And his words gave you pain?"

It was a petty reaction, but yes, they had. "I do not know if I will return to Regith, mother, and cannot be held accountable as de facto head of our household any longer. Assume I am dead. Your future choices in her life may reflect that."

"Her academy studies were sanctioned to assist you."

I had not known such a compromise had been struck. "My point is this, what Ade'lie does from this point forward need not parallel my duty."

A cool hand cupped my cheek, my mother pressing her forehead to mine. "No longer think of it. Your love for her I see, just as I see your love for me. I do not need open flame to feel it."

There was never a change in my expression, but relief I could pass the duty of Ade'lie's rearing to one more suited left me lighter. "I do love you."

Her farewell I had heard many times and knew the nuances of her voice like I knew the smell of her skin. "Should you pass to Death before we meet again I will see you on the other side."

My hand found her shoulder. "My arms will be open."

"Die well."

"Yes, Mother."

Refreshed, I faded from my mother's embrace, reappearing at the landing pad before my latest ship. Upon entering I found the commissary laden with Nagala's materials and research. Stacks of books precious in their rarity and age strewn in an order I could not fathom, the man's quick fingers seeking pages and leaving marks.

He wore the cobalt skirt of his rank, his long hair bound over and over, small plaits woven into larger, and so on, keeping the overabundance from dragging over the floor. The rest of him remained bare, his prime years shown in the musculature and beauty of a Regi elder. A male his age was nearest to physical perfection, a thing regarded with reverence by my people.

The instant my entry was noticed I asked, "Is there more you need, Adept Nagala, time required with the living before the journey commences?"

He seemed to ponder, a habit of his I remembered from my younger years. When he spoke, it was after a deep breath expanded his exposed chest. "There are texts off world I could not acquire on short notice. Many I have waiting on panel but without tactile study the ability to absorb magical hints will be limited."

There was so much already waiting and greater needs to be met. Looking around the room I nodded. "This is an exemplary beginning and time is short. The panel will have to do."

Nagala asked, "Beyond this study how am I to assist you?"

My fingers traced over the worn edge of leather binding, feeling the skin crumble under my fingers. "I need a blood oath. Anything I might show, that I might teach, you may never enact, speak of, or share. I will bind your life to my service where I can snuff out your light when _expected_ circumstances arrive." I found the fire burning at the center of the space, the enclosed flame the ship was built to house, and watched the steady burn. "And I need much more. I need help."

There was no hesitation in the man. "I will do these things for you, Acolyte."

Moving my attention from dancing licks of orange flame to the male, I demanded, "Then offer your palm."

The second he did I drew forth a great gash across his flesh. The wound pooled. My finger rose, beckoning the black fluid to move through the air toward me. It swirled from his cupping hand, a slender rope slithering nearer until it found the blood I'd drawn from my own flesh. The two twisted, knotted and pulled our physical forms nearer until our hands met, the full measure of my demands sealed in the reabsorption of the fluid between us.

Even with the blood oath I did not show him the mirror.

In vague descriptions I asked for a compilation of anything forming small fragments of the first unknown tracing that sat beside _kenetic_. He went to work choosing what best fit my muted-description.

I took the helm, lifted from our home world, and hailed the Kree. "Acolyte Azrael of Regith seeks communion with Ronan the Accuser."

An image flashed before me. Korath had the helm, distain thick in his voice as he hissed, "Then you must wait. Ronan rests."

Enough time had been spent and I would not play games with the Pursuer. In a blink I appeared on the bridge of the Kree ship. Weapons were drawn, Korath shouting, but I vanished when the one I sought was not to be seen. He was near though, I could feel his life-force. Materializing at the heart of the ship I found a throne of dark-metaled grandeur where sat the one I sought, straight-backed just as he'd sat a year prior on the shuttle that took me from the desert world to judgment.

The hammer did not move from his knee, I did not even see him draw breath, but his eyelids rose and backlit amethysts waited. He stared at the silver skull mask, Ronan's lip curling.

The Grand Accuser had no cause for indignation and I reminded him of why, "Your ship lingers above my planet in expectation of my presence."

Ronan confirmed, voice grisly, "Anticipated days ago."

"Then why do your subordinates believe they might waste time by denying my hail? I do not understand the reasoning behind these actions or your anger, Ronan. Do you intend to deny my request and simply wished to do so in person? Explain the Kree concepts beyond me."

He seemed pleased at my words, "You are impatient."

Stepping nearer his throne, weaponless, I spoke, "You did not protest my order for the return of the ship given to me by the Supreme Intelligence, even though you knew my reasoning was to place you in a position of indebtedness." I required a greater favor, and Ronan had understood. I'd been punished with unexpected carnal attention, put in a situation that made my appearance before him awkward. But there were no fires in the room to dance or smolder due to my feelings. Stone faced, I began, "You had your chance to refuse _vocally_, instead you loiter in Regith space. Do you not wait for me?"

Ronan sat still, unwavering. "Yet you would dare approach masked."

Cold, I answered, "There is no literal mask. I am an Acolyte."

A warning cut from thinned lips, "I know your face and would see it, Azrael."

I suspected Korath would swarm the room with soldiers, and was displeased with the thought of their eyes seeing me as Ronan wished to see me. "You desire to reduce me from my status, for your soldiers to see me standing bared as I was stripped before the Kree before you caned me? As you looked at me after? Why you touched me?" I did not know why I felt the need to reason with him on a subject. "This is only a living body; impermanent. It is not supposed to matter. I am an Acolyte, I am the mask."

Ronan sat, motionless as he coldly ordered, "Remove. It."

A quick wave of my hand before my face and the mask was banished, hidden with magic near enough I could draw it back at a whim. The instant it was gone I felt the weight of his attention, the subtle narrowing of his eyes proof he found me ragged.

I had been thoroughly bathed and dressed in fresh robes but I was wan, my cheekbones prominent from starvation, and eyes sunken.

"Why do you appear this way?"

I had no wish to go into great detail. "I required contact beyond this realm. Ablutions had to be made and long hours devoted to meditation and fasting so I might achieve it." I pushed back the hood, before he might demand I uncover my hair next, and began, "My request is simple. Your ship's engines are superior to mine and your cargo hold large enough to house my cruiser. Time is against me. May I beg a ride, noble Kree?"

The sitting giant bent the corners of his mouth upward. "Our business is disproportionate."

My spine straightened. "You claimed something ... beyond what was owed for the fragments."

Ronan raised his chin, imperious, a mean little smirk on his half painted mouth. "Do you even fathom what I have claimed?"

Had there been flames in the room they would have smoldered to mere embers. "I do not have time for games or power struggles, Ronan. Memory, a Kree year's worth, has been taken from me. In that time what was set in motion I cannot fathom. An Acolyte is in need of your help. To refuse me would be a great slight against the Mistress."

"How does one lose a year?"

The answer was simple, "Sorcery. The Collector is a very powerful creature."

"Why would he take it from you?"

"A being of his years..." My voice wandered, unable to explain what I did not know. "I can hardly comprehend his motivation in breaking our alliance, why, or how I was used. I remember nothing."

"Then how do you know it was him?"

How I hated standing before him trying to justify my actions. "I did not always remember nothing. Before the spell was finished I remembered enough."

The man had the audacity to smirk. "You are more than offended, Azrael. You grieve."

"You are the Grand Accuser of your people, a position hardly different than mine. Denying me aid would be bowing to the Collector and whatever schemes he is about; refusing duty."

"Do you not wish me to bow to you? Is that not why you have appeared from thin air, indignant and persistent?"

The very fact he could frustrate me made me answer cautiously, "I only beg a ride. The rest you imagine. If it is your intent to deny me, give me the courtesy of telling me now. You are not the only option, but you are the one I have chosen."

The mean curl of his lips extended. "Your attempt to force my hand is pitiful."

I let out a breath, longing to close my eyes and rub my temples. But I could not. I could not look away when Ronan stared. "Please."

"Come closer," Ronan ordered. "Ask me again."

Walking until I stood directly before him I fought to keep my voice empty, "Shall I get on my knees? You seem to enjoy degrading me. If your goal is to shame an Acolyte, understand my personal feelings are nothing compared to my duty."

Violent eyes grew with light at my words. "Many interesting themes arose during this discourse. Your diffidence and miscalculation amuse me.

"I have conversed with gods, murdered great queens, even sat in the presence of a celestial. I have been touched by Death and delivered to him tens of thousands. You accuse me of shyness, than you are the one who misunderstands. I am simply disinterested in babble."

Why did he look so pleased? "No, you are very interested, frustrated by your ignorance."

The argument seemed droll, as was my response, "The last time I asked you what payment you required you grew angry. But that is where our conversation is leading, so let's not waste time. What do you want, Ronan?"

"Much."

"That does not surprise me. Perhaps I should have made the question more focused. What payment do you require to drop me outside Knowhere and consider your debt and my favor proportionate?"

"I will call upon you when I decide. For now your ship may board and the coordinates delivered to Korath." Ronan gave me his back, returning to his throne. "Six Kree days to Knowhere."

"Six?" I did the math in my head, finding the journey faster than I imagined. Even with my lost week of preparation it would assure I arrived before my cleric bearing the corpse of Taneleer's messenger. I would be in place to begin wooing Carina the moment the dead man's jaw hung loose.

Once seated Ronan glared at me. "You are pleased?"

I let out a breath, "Yes."

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><p><strong>After doing a little more research I learned that I was incorrect about who is involved with the bathing and dressing of Ronan. Those who attend him are not women (handmaidens, as I called them), but <strong>**Exolon monks. I will be going back to previous chapters to fix that error. Sorry about that.**

**Now to the fun stuff. THANK YOU to all my kind reviewers! I am all settled in now and have several chapters ahead finished, which means you will get updates much more often. I really appreciate you, I appreciate the feedback, and I think we will have a lot of fun with this story.**


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